FANTASTIC
SCIENCE FICTION
THE STORY BEHIND THE COVER . . .
In recent years — particularly in the realm of physical diagnosis —
modern medicine has advanced in seven-league boots. So confident has
been its stride and so brilliant its utilization of instruments of science
undreamed of in the horse-and-buggy era that it has imparted to even
the most routine of hospital examinations a deceptive aspect of in-
fallibility.
You may now step without misgivings into a great modern hospital
and be assured of a physical screening as exact and painstaking as
a test for radio-active fall-outs in the vicinity of an atomic proving
ground.
And yet — we’ve a disturbing, incredible suspicion that your assur-
ance may be rudely shaken. You may chance to glance up, for instance,
and see a momentary flicker of uncertainty in the gaze of the young
chap in white who greeted you with such cheerfulness barely three
minutes before. He’s human, you see. He knows what the machines can
do, but he’s remembering what happened to him when he was just a
young medical student and mistook a faint, ghostly shadow on an
X-ray for a revelation of the direst significance.
Or he may simply be remembering how misleading and uncertain
symptomology in general can be. He may be remembering what every
competent medical man knows — that symptoms in themselves are seldom
absolutely diagnostic, and that the organic changes which so often
produce them may be simulated by perfectly healthy organs and tissues.
The organs and tissues may not even be “acting up” psychosomatically.
Symptoms often appear with a kind of ghostly irrationality, precisely
as “fatigue” may develop in giant computing machines that cannot
logically undergo the slightest impairment of function.
There is so much that remains totally inexplicable and beyond the
range of human interpretation that our present diagnostic aids must
remain just that — valuable assisting mechanisms with a rigidly cir-
cumscribed utility.
But suppose — just suppose — that the machines were to become
robotlike in their complexity and really infallible in their diagnostic
findings. Suppose that the instant you stretched yourself out on a
hospital couch beams of radiant energy arched and flickered above you,
and —
People vary in what they consider prophetic. But we rather suspect
that this month’s unusual cover illustration will set you to dreaming
about the remarkable implications of an infallible mechanical diagnos-
tician with an unerring instinct for getting at the root of “what ails
you !”
FRANK BELKNAP LONG
I F YOU just like co dream, read no fur-
ther. There comes a time when your
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millions— whose thoughts never get
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Secnet
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All things begin with thought— it is what
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i power that draws, compels and
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AUGUST. 1955
Vol. 4. No. 1
FANTASTIC
UNIVERSE
H. L. Herbert
President
Leo Margulies
Publisher
Editorial Director
Kelly Freas
Cover Design
Epidemic on Venus 4
by Ed M. Clinton, Jr.
Free Will ... 32
by Dal S livens
Operation Triplan 3G
by Mack Reynolds
Fresh Pastures 49
by Garnett Radcliffe
The Advantages Are Tremendous ... 55
by Curtis W. Casewit
A New World 64
by Richard R. Smith
The Good Husband 76
by Evelyn E. Smith
Escape Mechanism 79
by Arthur Sellings
Grand Rounds 89
by Alan E. Nourse
Homesick Lane 102
by Norman Arkawy & Stanley Ilenig
Crazy Mixed-Up Planet 108
by Charles E. Fritch
Homecoming 126
by J. Harvey Haggard
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE, VoL 4. No. 1. Published monthly by King-Size Publication*.
I nc.. 471 Park Ave.. N. Y. 22. N. Y. Subscription, 12 issues $3.75. single copies S5<. Foreign
postage extra. Reentered as second-class matter at the post office. New York. New York. The
characters in this magazine are entirely fictitious and have no relation to any persons living
or dead. Copyright 1955, by Kino-Size Publications, Inc. AUG., 1955. riuNrco in u. a. a.
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epidemic
on
venus
by ... Ed M. Clinton, Jr.
They were men of vision, bringing
to a new world a multitude of
bright new skills. But in the
mist was an enemy, cobra-deadly.
Hans Shaeffer’s arrival as the
fourth member of our medical staff
at Hulbert, Venus, could hardly
have been better timed. It was while
I was giving him the customary
'this-is-Venus’ talking to that venu-
sia mysteriosa burst upon us.
I guess it must have been my
umpteenth run-through of the new-
arrival routine and it probably
sounded pretty uninspired by then.
And yet — how grim and tragic it
all seems in retrospect! We were
such blindly groping babes in the
Venusian woods.
There was, of course, no logical
justification for our surprise and
consternation when the epidemic
struck. When underneath the cloud
of carbon dioxide that had baffled
the astronomers for a century we
found a Venus as green and warm
and hospitable as Earth, why should
we have been surprised by the ap-
pearance of disease-bearing organ-
isms? Why shouldn’t we have as-
sumed that an almost identical en-
vironment would support germs to
which human beings would be dan-
gerously susceptible?
Every aspect of human life on Earth constantly reaffirms that man does not
live by bread alone. Even the most savagely embittered of cynics must of
necessity follow his guiding star in the silent watches of the night, " dream-
ing dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” And that is why, in Ed M.
Clinton’s stark documentary account of the human struggle for survival on
a world primeval and unexplored the shining vision, the search for the
unattainable, takes on such a thrilling and utterly irresistible immediacy.
4
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
"But they’ve never given evidence
of their presence before," I said, as
we all settled down in Dr. Crocker’s
office a few minutes later. Jerry Le-
Blanc, a medical specialist of rare
discernment, sat directly opposite
Shaeffer nervously smoking a ciga-
rette.
Shaeffer, a quiet, powerfully built
man of my own age, was a biologist
who had only recently become a
doctor, and who looked upon Venus
as a naturalist's paradise, which in-
deed it was.
"We assumed there were subtle
differences of bodily structure," Le-
Blanc said, "and blood-stream sus-
ceptibility which would prevent us
— and most probably all terrestrial
vertebrates — from becoming ade-
quate hosts for Venusian parasites.
That certainly isn’t a new concept,
and it applies in a limited sense to
the immunity factor in all commu-
nicable diseases.”
Jerry offered Hans a cigarette,
and as Shaeffer readied for it the
visiscreen buzzed and announced the
second tragically confirmatory link
in the diain of events which was to
turn mankind’s Venusian adventure
into an epic struggle against dis-
aster.
I flipped the toggle. "Bad news
I’m afraid," said Janie Nelson, our
attractive blonde receptionist. "It’s
another sick call. The woman
sounded desperately concerned."
I nodded. "Address, please.”
"Just a moment." She scanned
a sheet of paper. "Eighty-eight K
Lane. Mrs. Chris Larsen."
"Thank you, darling." I scribbled
the address. She stared at me, her
eyes flashing, as the image faded.
"Sam,” growled, Jerry, "why
don’t you marry that girl and settle
some bets around here?"
I grinned and handed Jerry the
address.
A few minutes later Jerry phoned
in and said he was bringing Larsen
to the hospital. "Call Crocker,’’ he
added. "I don’t like the looks of
this."
"All right,” I said, and switched
off.
Shaeffer frowned quizzically.
"Do you people always become
geared to an emergency so quickly?"
"We don’t scare easily," I said.
"But we’ve been holding our breath
for a long time now."
I had Janie put a call through to
the administration building, where
Dr. Crocker was in conference with
Charles Gordon, the founder and
governor of the settlement.
The ambulance from 88 K Lane,
with Jerry LeBlanc and his patient
aboard, was back before Crocker
arrived. Shaeffer and I and two
nurses were waiting as it emerged
from the mist which was steaming
down from the high, swirling fog
bank. The long Venusian night had
just dispelled the last flicker of
waning daylight. After almost four
long months of getting used to the
darkness you must adjust all over
again when daylight comes, and the
strain can be appalling.
Jerry leapt down from the back
of the vehicle and the driver came
6
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
around and helped him willi the
stretcher. I swung up beside them,
spoke a few words, and then stop-
ped. For I had seen the patient's
face, staring up f rom-the shadows.
There's something unutterably
ghastly about the face of mysteriosa.
I came to know the expression well
— the utter withdrawal, the living
consciousness cut off from the out-
side world. It suggests the way a
man might look if he were watching
himself in a mirror, dying.
"Okay, let’s get on with it,” I
snapped, pulling myself together.
"Careful now. Crocker will be here
in a moment’’
Crocker walked up even as I
spoke. "Hello, Doc," I said.
Dr. Nathan Crocker was a stur-
dily built, white-haired man with a
ruggedly weather-bronzed face lined
with creases beyond-counting. Imag-
ine a legendary nineteenth century
country doctor transported across
the dark night of space to Venus,
and you will have something of the
essence of the man. But Crocker
was no country doctor. He was a
real cosmopolite in the world of
medicine, who still moved and talk-
ed like a youngster, and could have
surpassed me in endurance any day
in the week.
"Well, Sam.’’ He smiled cordial-
ly, all the lines in his face shifting
in unison. "Precisely what docs it
look like?”
I shrugged. "Worse than the first
case,’’ I said. "See for yourself.”
His face became somber. "I’ve
seen some strange things, Sam. I
spent ten years in Africa, as you
know, doing some highly revealing
work on sleeping sickness. Remind
me to tell you sometime about poor
Harry Graytag.”
I didn’t remind him of the fifty
times he had already told me about
Harry Graytag.
He bent over, and looked down
at Larsen and as he did so his eye-
brows twitched, and his whole scalp
settled back. There was no other
physical reaction. I could almost
read his thoughts, though. He look-
ed up, squinted, and then returned
his gaze to the stricken man's con-
vulsively distorted face. I knew that
he was seeking to jink what he
knew and suspected with certain
novel intangibles that eluded his
comprehension.
Larsen was awake, or at least his
watery, glazed eyes were wide open.
There was something about his atti-
tude that simulated an acutely
heightened consciousness.
"Easy now," said Crocker, "how
do you feel?”
Larsen did not reply. His mouth
twitched and he started playing with
the air with jerky shaking hands.
Then he began to sob softly.
Crocker looked up at me again,
then back at Larsen. He coughed
and said, "I see.” After a pause, he
added: "Brain, I suppose. It might
even be an abscess. Don’t stand
there staring. We'II run an electro-
encephalograph — ”
Doc wore an impassive mask dur-
ing the whole of the examination.
We went over Larsen from head to
EPIDEMIC
foot, submitting him to every clini-
cal test at our command. Unfortu-
nately the more painstakingly thor-
ough we became, the less we dis-
covered. He was dreadfully sick,
and that was all of which we could
be certain.
After a while the lab reports be-
gan drifting in. The EEC showed
nothing. The blood count indicated
some anemia, which might well
have been the result of his difficulty
in taking food. The blood sugar in-
dex was only slightly above normal.
As we expected, the electrocardio-
gram was perfectly normal. His
blood pressure was a little low, but
not alarmingly so. Our cluster of
X-rays was just as unrewarding.
There wasn’t a mark on him, in-
ternally or externally. The routine
radiation count was safe. The last
data to be studied was the spinal
fluid analysis. It was clear.
Jerry had talked to Mrs. Larsen,
and incorporated in a written sum-
mary a history of her husband's ill-
ness until the moment of his col-
lapse. Such information as she was
able to supply was disappointingly
meagre. There seemed to have been
no previous contributing illnesses.
As far as she knew, aside from the
usual childhood maladies, his only
sickness had been a bout with virus
pneumonia. Until a week before, he
had been in perfect health. Then he
had begun to deteriorate. First he
had lost his appetite. Then, rapidly,
his strength had failed, and he had
become increasingly irritable and
ON VENUS 7
restless. Finally he had taken to his
bed, and she had called us.
Crocker paced nervously, his ex-
pression somber and preoccupied,
his gnarled hands tightly intertwin-
ed behind his back.
"What do you think, Doc?” I
ventured.
He grimaced in a manner that
was all his own. The thousand lines
in his face seemed to sink in deeper
than ever. "What can I think?" lie
exclaimed. "I’m going to have to go
pretty far back on this, Sam."
"Back?" asked Shaeffer, puzzled.
"1 haven’t been in the tropics for
many years," Crocker said, looking
up quickly and gesturing toward the
window. "There’s a tropical land-
scape all around us, but it's a little
different from the tropics I knew as
a young lad."
He went to the window and stood
regarding the swirling fog outside.
The winds of nightfall had passed,
and the mist seemed to mirror the
surge of his thoughts in its restless,
mysterious eddying.
Hesitantly, as though reluctant to
detach himself from his memory of
the past, he turned and faced us.
"We’ll have to wait and see. I’ll
keep my eye on Larsen. Meanwhile,
one of you had better get some
sleep.”
I advised Shaeffer to turn in. He
was dead on his feet, having ex-
posed himself too recklessly to the
strains and stresses of the unfamiliar
Venusian gravity after his weeks in
space.
1 injected several of our resi-
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
8
dent customers with derivitomycin,
changed a few bandages, took some
temperatures, and found myself a
magazine which I had read at least
seven times before. 4 dozed off, se-
cure in the knowledge that Jerry
would be up in a while, anyway.
II
Crocker’s hand on my shoulder
roused me. I blinked and looked at
my wrist-watch through blurred
pupils. 1 had been sleeping almost
seven hours, and the stiffness in my
back bore painful testimony to the
fact.
"Larsen’s de;id," Crocker said
with grim urgency. "He died in
agony, screaming and clawing at the
air." His hand tightened on my
shoulder. "We’re conducting an im-
mediate autopsy. Get dressed Sam,
and come along. I’ll need your
moral support. We can't tell what
may show up.”
After the autopsy, we were still
tragically bewildered.
A short while later, Governor
Gordon called Crocker. I was in
Crocker’s office at the time, sitting
directly across the room from him.
I could hear Gordon’s voice clearly
on the visi phone.
"Anything new on Larsen?" I
heard him ask.
"I’m afraid not,” replied Crocker,
shaking his heaJ wearily.
"Well, something's come up,”
Gordon said. "Mrs. Larsen was just
ia to see me.”
"Oh?” Crocker shifted in Ills
chair. "If she's ill she should have
called us."
"No, no, it’s not that," Gordon
said. "It’s more serious.” He paused,
and I wondered what could be more
serious than a repetition of the
tragedy that had overtaken Larsen.
Then I knew what it must be.
"She’s asked for transportation
back to Earth,” Gordon said. "Im-
mediately. I’m afraid she’s legally
entitled to it.”
I leaned forward. Crocker had
lied beautifully when he had assur-
ed Larsen’s wife that her husband
had died of a recurrence of virus
pneumonia. We were afraid to tell
her that we didn’t know what had
killed him. The settlement was pre-
carious enough and to have let the
fear of a new and horrible disease
run like quicksilver through the tiny
population would have been to
court utter disaster.
"We’ll have to be firm with her,”
said Crocker, managing to blend
urgency with a patient sympathy.
"There’s too much danger she
might carry the disease back to
Earth. We have no way of knowing
whether or not it’s communicable.”
He ran trembling fingers through
his tousled white hair. "We dis-
cussed this at the autopsy, Gordon.
You said that unofficially — ”
"Yes, unofficially Hulbert is
under quarantine. But that doesn’t
solve the problem. I was wondering
if it might not be advisable to tell
her the truth.”
"I hardly see how we can avoid
it” Crocker gnawed at his underlip.
EPIDEMIC
"There may be one other alterna-
tive. I’ll let you know, Gordon."
"All right. But be quick.”
Crocker switched off the visi-
phone and stared into emptiness.
"I couldn’t help overhearing," I
murmured. "Mrs. Larsen’s attitude
makes our whole problem more diffi-
cult."
Crocker focussed his eyes on me.
"Suppose you take a walk with me,
Sam," he said. "Just talking it over
may help me reach a decision.” He
grunted and unwound his wiry five-
foot-five from behind the littered
desk. "It's bad business, Sam," he
added, shaking his head.
A hot, heavy rain was falling,
blurring the great banks of artificial
light that bathed the night-time col-
ony. We pulled our feather- light
raincapes high about our necks and
moved forward shivering. Our feet,
clattering on plastic walkways and
sloshing through mud puddles at
unpaved intersections, made the
only sounds there were. In Hulbert
in the year 1990 all men and women
walked, for the only vehicles that
the colony possessed were work
trucks and the hospital’s four am-
bulances.
As I walked, I thought of how
far away, in time as well as in space,
Barth seemed. Though in sober real-
ity it had been scarcely two years, it
seemed incalculably longer since I
had last seen New York, or had
watched fleecy clouds slip across the
enchanted palette of a sunset sky.
Here there was only fog — overhead
and on every side. The fog and the
ON - VENUS 9
somberly forbidding jungle, into
which we cut — it seemed barely an
inch a day — with our raucous, ugly
machines.
AH we had of Earth was this
utilitarian, scientifically organized
pin-prick of a settlement called
Hulbert, after the memory of the
first man who had crossed the dark
night of space to Venus. A mining
town, a pseudopod of civilization
adhering with nothing more than
the cement of human tenacity to the
alien muck of a world men had not
been born to. Every square foot was
occupied, every minute of time con-
sumed had a value precisely cal-
culable in dollars and cents — a cost
that had to be met.
Because of this, Gordon had de-
signed the settlement on a complete-
ly functional basis and had imposed
on it a casual but thoroughly mecha-
nistic rulebook management. Some-
day, I hoped, all that would change.
The settlement would take firmer
root and the uranium shipments to
Earth would begin to pay off. Then,
surely, a little relaxation would be
in order.
"I think we've arrived,” Crock-
er’s voice, half-muffled by his cape,
interrupted my thoughts. We stood
directly in front of a squat grey tin
structure with windows, in all re-
spects similar to the thousand other
tin dwellings which housed the ma-
jority of the colonists.
He pushed the buzzer. The
woman who let us in was small and
blonde, rather unattractive and per-
haps thirty-five years of age. She
IO
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
seemed to blend completely with the
ugly little cabin that was her home,
almost losing her identity in the
process.
Crocker came' directly to the
point. '‘1 understand you’d like to
go back to Earth,” he said.
Mrs. Larsen sat in a straight-
backed metal chair, a grim and
tragically pathetic figure shadowed
by the harsh interior of the hut. I
looked around that room for some
measure of relief from the grey
sameness, but my eyes encountered
only one picture — an old and faded
color photograph of an elderly cou-
ple, hung on the wall to my left.
The floor was covered by a plain,
resilient, durable linoleum. The fur-
niture was mostly of light-weight
metal, incredibly cold to the touch
even on Venus. By comparison, the
hospital seemed a haven of luxury.
At Crocker’s words, Mrs. Larsen
stiffened, and her hands tightened,
one upon the other. “Why should 1
stay, now?” She was obviously fight-
ing back tears. I felt very uncom-
fortable.
Crocker cleared his throat. ”Mrs.
Larsen, I have a confession to make.
I’m not going to ask that you listen
to me in strict confidence. I'll trust
to your judgment on that.”
She seemed stiffer than ever, al-
ready determined to take exception
to whatever he might have to say.
*’What is it, Doctor?”
"Mrs. Larsen, your husband did
not die of virus pneumonia. Some-
times we’re not as wise as we should
be, we doctors. We just don’t
know everything — especially about
Venus.” He scratched the back of
his head with a shy gesture. "We
wish we did, but we don’t.” His
knotty hand swept jerkily through
the air. "He died of something from
out there, Mrs. Larsen, something
from out of the jungle.”
She gasped and seemed to crum-
ple. ”Why didn’t you tell me this
before? Why did you try to deceive
me with a foolish lie?” Her voice
became shrill. "Did you drink me
lacking in courage? Did you? I
have a right to know.”
Crocker leaned forward and put
a hand upon hers. ’’We're just try-
ing to keep the others from becom-
ing frightened. Until we know ex-
actly what killed your husband, we
can't take a chance on its being car-
ried back to Earth.”
"Are you trying to tell me I can’t
go back?” There was cold fury in
her eyes.
"Mrs. Larsen, I don’t have to
tell you what might happen if the
other settlers should learn that a new
disease has taken two lives and may
take more. There was an earlier
case, you see.”
"But — ” And then she bent for-
ward and started to cry, her shoul-
ders sagging and her face pressed
into her thin hands.
Crocker reached over again and
gripped her hand tightly. "You and
your husband came to Venus to
build a new life. Just now you
spoke of courage. Without great
and exceptional courage there would
have been no settlement, and yot*
EPIDEMIC ON- VENUS
I I
are one of the original colonists."
"But Chris and I — I mean, with-
out him — ’’
"Of course. But walk through the
settlement sometime and consider
how important its preservation is to
every one of its citizens. None of us
has an easy task.” He got up, some-
what uncertainly. I followed suit.
"Mrs. Larsen, I thought perhaps
you’d like to join our hospital staff.
We’re very short-handed, you know.
We could really use you. And frank-
ly, if the disease reaches epidemic
proportions, you could be of tre-
mendous help.”
Ill
It was still raining when we went
back to the hospital. "Dr. Crocker,"
I said, shaking my head, "you’re a
wonder . . .”
The night wore on. Gordon an-
nounced that a case of unusual virus
pneumonia had appeared in the set-
tlement, and warned the colonists to
report instandy anyone stricken with
a sudden illness, accompanied by
great weariness, loss of appetite,
and, in the end, utter collapse and a
complete inability to initiate con-
scious action.
But nothing further of an alarm-
ing nature developed, and we began
to hope that we had permitted our-
selves the rather masochistic luxury
of a good scare. Crocker, untiringly
studying Larsen’s history, would
knit his brows and shake his head,
and then finger his way with mad-
dening deliberation through a
thumbworn and tattered medical
vol urae,
Colonial Transport Service space-
ships continued to arrive and depart
on schedule. They brought new col-
onists and the precious supplies we
couldn’t yet produce on Venus, and
took back with them the incalcu-
lably valuable uranium ore which
was Hulbert’s economic lifeline to
security.
"Free land — Unparalleled oppor-
tunity !” tire posters on Earth kept
shouting. "Go to Venus!”
An over-burdened civilization
was seeking equilibrium and we
were the fulcrum upon which it
swung. The wheels of industry were
turning ever more staggeringly to
the surge of atomic power stemming
from the product of Venus’ vast
uranium fields.
The First Interplanetary Land
Rush, the greatest movement into
free land since the opening of the
American West more than a century
before, was in full swing. First
there was Hulbert and New Amer-
ica, and then an increasing sprin-
kling of other settlements founded
by small and large nations from one
end of the Earth to the other.
Gordon’s dream o-f a new world
for men was truly nearing fulfill-
ment. The statistics told their own
story. It had taken four years to at-
tract a thousand settlers and their
families to New America. Now, in
less than two months, since the be-
ginning of the year 1990 , Hulbert’s
population had increased twofold.
And then at the peak of the rush.
12
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
when everything Gordon had hoped
for seemed about to be realized,
vena si a mysteriosa struck again, and
again, with an appalling mortality.
It was Shaeffer- who named the
ghastly plague the Dying Death.
Ten cases came in during fifteen
terrifying periods. In a population
the size of Hulbert's, it had all the
earmarks of an incipient epidemic.
We were helpless. All we could do
was to attempt, with all the re-
sources at our command, to dull the
agony of death. Always it was the
same, and one by one the colonists
died, their pitiful, emaciated bodies
leaving behind not one jot of infor-
mation as to the cause of the invari-
ably fatal malady.
I began to hate the sight of the
operating room. Crocker himself
supervised every desperate recourse
to surgery and each time he went
about his task he seemed to become
a little grimmer and a little more
drawn of face. Only his hands re-
mained steady and unshaking.
Then one morning I emerged
from the operating room to see
Charles Gordon striding down the
hallway toward us, his lips set in
tight lines and his head cast ever so
slightly sideward. He was the kind
of man who could hold steadfast to
the most unattainable of dreams and
drive his way doggedly through the
underbrush of human inadequacy.
"Well, Crocker — anything new?”
he demanded. Close up, I saw that
there were shadows of worry around
his vigorous black eyes and that in
general he had the appearance of a
man who wasn’t getting nearly
enough rest.
Crocker began pulling off his
surgical gloves. "I’m afraid not,
Gordon,” he replied, laying both
gloves carefully in his left hand.
"We keep getting the same an-
swer.”
"You think it's hopeless, then?”
asked Gordon, staring hard at the
surgeon.
"These people die,” Crocker
spoke calmly, his pale blue eyes
shifting out of focus. "They die of
something we know virtually noth-
ing about. Something, I think, of a
different, a completely alien disease
process.” He shook his head and
ran skinny fingers through his white
hair. "Bacteria of a similar environ-
ment should — But I told them they
were wrong.”
The three of us paced silently to-
ward Crocker’s office. I got the dis-
tinct impression that Gordon was
reluctant to speak his mind with
complete candor. As we reached the
door to Crocker's office, he asked
abruptly: "Crocker, do you honestly
think we can cope with this our-
selves?”
Crocker turned with one hand on
the doorknob, his eyebrows raised.
"For God’s sake,” snapped Gor-
don, "we mustn’t let pride stand in
the way of admitting that a tragedy
of this magnitude may be too much
for us?”
You could almost see the ramrod
unfold in Crocker’s spine. His eyes
flashed, and his hand tightened on
the knob until the knuckles showed
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
13
white against the pink flesh. “You
don't really mean we’, Charlie. You
mean 'Dr. Nathan Crocker.’ ’’ He
swung open the door and went into
the office. "You are the governor,
Charlie. You’ll have to decide that
for yourself."
The door slammed in our faces.
Gordon stretched his shoulders
nervously. Then he gestured down
the hallway and took firm hold of
my arm. We walked.
“Smith, I know I can trust you,"
he said. “I think you’ll agree that
we can’t let any element of personal
feeling influence our judgment in
this matter. Crocker’s a pretty old
man.**
“That doesn’t necessarily mean
anything,” I said, hating Gordon
for putting me so aggressively on
the defensive.
"Certainly not,” he agreed in-
stantly. “Crocker is eminently suited
to this job, with half a lifetime of
experience in tropical research be-
hind him. But a lifetime of experi-
ence can make a man stubborn —
perhaps dangerously so in a situa-
tion like this.”
At the hospital entrance, Gordon
turned to me and smiled — with a
warmth unusual in that hard-driving
man. “Smith, just remember what
I've said. If you ever honestly think
that Crocker has lost control of the
situation, let me know.’’ He shook
my arm before relaxing his grip.
“Thanks.”
I watched him go, feeling a little
better. When I went into Crocker’s
office a moment later he didn’t ask
me what had transpired between
Gordon and myself, for which I was
thankful. He just muttered, "Sam,
I’m going to make Gordon change
his mind.”
We knew we could not long hide
our ignorance, and the fact that the
frightful Dying Death was some-
thing more than just a virulent
atypical pneumonia. Rumor and gos-
sip were already working their
havoc. After all, diere were the hus-
bands, wives and children who had
lost loved ones and who had seen
die mysterious malady’s initial
phases, and could not help but won-
der and pass on their dark doubts
to their frightened neighbors.
All this time Mrs. Larsen was
wonderful, never sparing herself at
the hospital, keeping up die con-
fidence of doctors and patients alike.
She was, I came to realize, one of
the really great pioneer women of
Venus.
Crocker worked doggedly, deny-
ing himself desperately needed rest,
studying case histories and checking
the autopsies. He spent hours in the
lab with the technicians, taking
copious notes, and reading through
the fabulous, worn library of medi-
cal volumes that dealt with every
aspect of medical research and prac-
tice. He became so familiar with the
unvarying pattern of tnysteriosa that
we could plot perfectly the develop-
ment of a case, almost to predicting
die hour of death.
Then, miraculously, the near-epi-
demic halted after the twelfdi case
— and Crocker found something of
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
14
startling significance in a post mor-
tem.
IV
For thirteen periods we had re-
lief. Our last case had just deceased
— she had been the eighth woman
to succumb — and Crocker and
Shaeffer were performing the au-
topsy. For the first time in weeks I
had a few free minutes, and I was
spending them with Janie Nelson,
our all-around receptionist.
jerry’s remark about marrying her
meant simply that I was convinced
that Janie was the most desirable
girl in Hulbert. I had just remarked
that I liked being with her when
she said abruptly: "Sam, how long
do you think we can keep up this
pretense?"
That came as quite a jolt. "Why,
I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re
talking about," 1 said.
"Yes, you do. You know exactly
what l‘m talking about,” she af-
firmed.
"Then suppose you tell me."
"You’re in love with me, and you
want to marry me. But you’re afraid
to say so because the situation here
has become so desperately tragic."
She took one of my hands in both
of hers — too tightly, I thought.
"Sam, I’m scared. Suppose you can’t
find the answer. Suppose the settle-
ment has to be abandoned. We can’t
go back !" She shook my hand tense-
ly. "We can’t, without carrying the
disease to Earth.”
1 honestly hadn’t thought of that.
I had been working too close to it
to consider how it might affect me
personally. But Janie had seen the
miserable frightened faces passing
in and out, and was in constant,
tragic contact with the most thor-
oughly personal part of it.
I tried to picture the situation she
had suggested. All contact, all sup-
plies would be cut off. We’d be
alone in that planetary vastness of
jungle, dying one by one of myste-
riosa. No, it was impossible. It was
too horrible to contemplate. But I
saw in Janie’s tormented blue eyes
that awful alienness of Venus as I
had not dared to visualize it before.
I heard Crocker and Shaeffer com-
ing down the corridor, their steps
rapid and excited. Then I heaid
Crocker’s confident laughter. He
hadn’t laughed like that since be-
fore Larsen's death.
He came toward me and stopped
in front of me and clapped both
hands on my shoulders.
"Come to my office,” he said.
"I’ve got something to show you."
"Doc thinks we’ve found it," said
Shaeffer, his voice utterly weary.
"We discovered a little puncture in
the cerebellum — "
"A culture so small, a perforation
so tiny as to be almost invisible,"
Crocker said. "And a colony of bac-
teria and a virus present in the sur-
rounding cells."
It was a catastrophic coincidence.
Consider how beautifully the pieces
fell into place, misleading us almost
to complete disaster. Consider the
sudden cessation of new cases, and
Crocker’s discovery of the virus in
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
the cerebellum of the last victim of
mysteriosa. Remember, too, that we
were engaged in no mere abstract
research.
We were fighting for the very
life of the colony, and hence had no
time to waste. Our testing and re-
search and re-checking had to be of
the quickest possible sort. It had
also to be as direct and immediately
applicable as good science would al-
low. We were just not quite good
enough scientists.
But there was rejoicing in the
hospital. For the first time the dark
shadow that had been about to swal-
low us lightened a little. Gordon
was elated. He congratulated
Crocker and thanked him and told
him to get some rest. I forgot
Janie’s fears and the picture of an
abandoned settlement faded. We
went fearlessly ahead and made
tentative marriage plans.
With loving hands Crocker bred
a culture. When he had enough, he
tested some for sterilization. The
bacteria he took from the culture
succumbed completely to a pro-
longed exposure of infra-red radia-
tion. It was a happy bit of news, for
it meant that individuals exposed to
Venusian conditions could return to
Earth after the infra-red treatment
which had been standard all along.
It was a great step forward.
Crocker bred the culture further.
He prepared a toxin and injected it
into the cerebellum of one of Shaef-
fer’s guinea-pigs. Three periods
later the pig could no longer main-
tain its balance and exhibited all
15
measurable physical signs of myste-
riosa.
In two more periods Crocker had
his antitoxin. He then proceeded to
check it, two ways. First for inocu-
latory effect, and then for the slim
possibility that it might prove cura-
tive. Into one guinea-pig he first in-
jected the toxin, waited until the
animal became clearly ill, and then
gave it an injection of the anti-
toxin. Many were the guinea-pigs
that laid down their lives to enable
Crocker to master the technique of
time and dosage.
But at the end of two months,
when the long night had passed
and the sweltering heat of day once
more returned to cause us acute dis-
comfiture, he called Gordon and
told him that the Dying Death had
been conquered. The anti-toxin was
both inoculatory and curative.
In one of those dramatic an-
nouncements in which he took de-
light, Gordon revealed the truth to
the settlers, and we set up an in-
oculation schedule. It was a nerve-
wracking task. We had to be scrupu-
lously careful, too, since our supply
of anti-toxin, though growing, was
severely limited. Everything went
smoothly, however, and in about
fifty periods — twenty-five Earth
days — we had over half the settle-
ment inoculated.
And then, disaster struck again.
I was in Doc’s office, drowsily re-
laxing in his swivel chair and listen-
ing to the distant droning of the
mining machinery. I was thinking
very comfortable thoughts about
i6
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
Janie, when the buzzing of the visi-
screen aroused me from my lethargy
and I bent forward and snapped the
toggle.
"Hello, darling,” -I said. "I was
just thinking about you.”
"I’m glad,” Janie said. "But this
is urgent. "There's an emergency
wave-length radio call for Dr.
Crocker. Sparks is holding it down
at the field until he can get a local
line for it.”
"Who sent the message?”
"New Moscow. Sparks says they'll
talk to no one but Crocker.”
I hurried out of the office and
down to the inoculation station. I
was fairly certain I knew what the
call was about. We had been expect-
ing to hear sooner or later from the
other settlements. It seemed un like-
ly that the Dying Death would re-
main localized in Hulbert alone.
When I went in Doc had just
finished an inoculation. They were
frequently a little rugged. The re-
action was often severe and usually
required a period of enforced rest.
"New Moscow wants to talk to
you,” I said.
He looked up, the hypodermic
gleaming in his hand. "Take over
for me, Sam,” he said. "This may be
serious.”
After inoculation we always de-
livered the patients back to their
cabins in stretchers. I got Crocker’s
last victim on his way and loaded up
for the next in line.
When Crocker finally received
the call, he found himself talking to
a very heavy Russian accent. He told
me later that the conversation ran as
follows:
"This is Dr. Pietr Arensky, Medi-
cal Director, Little Russia. Doctor,
we have what we believe to be our
first case of mysteriosa. Your previ-
ous communication regarding the
location of the virus is most appre-
ciated, but — ”
"Of course. But I must warn you
we are in perilous short supply. I’ll
provide what I can of the toxin,
culture, and anti-toxin. Incidentally,
I recommend at least twenty powers
magnification when you search for
those punctures.”
“Yes, I understand. Would
twenty-four hours give you sufficient
time to prepare the materials?”
"I should think so. And by all
means keep in touch with me. Dr.
Arensky.”
V
Twenty-four hours later, rather
desperately in need of sleep but ex-
cited at the prospect of seeing some-
body new for a change, I was down
at the field with the toxins and cul-
tures. The landing field was our
pride and joy. At the time it was
certainly the finest landing area in
existence on the two worlds, boast-
ing twenty cradles, and hangars
enough for twice that many trans-
port spacecraft.
At one end was the administra-
tion building, which was also the in-
doctrination station and the physical
capitol of American Venus. Every
person arriving on the planet passed
through that imposing building and
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
was screened from hairline to toe-
nail. It may seem that these exten-
sive facilities far exceeded the needs
of a tiny settlement like Hulbert.
They did. But we were looking
ahead, to a time when Hulbert
would be the largest metropolis on
Venus.
I strolled out onto the field, scan-
ning the grey sky. Far to the south
I could see the Russian ship — a
black speck moving rapidly against
the mottled backdrop of clouds. In
another moment it was hovering di-
rectly overhead, and I could hear
the droning of its auxiliary motors.
Then the tower triple-flashed, a
landing cradle slipped open, and the
ship dropped neatly down on charg-
ing jets.
I strode across the field to meet
the burly figure emerging from the
ship. He came swiftly toward me,
smiling and shouting something in
Russian.
I smiled back, and shook my
head, and handed him the kit con-
taining the all-important materials.
He spoke again in Russian and
saluted briefly. We touched hands,
and then he was hurrying back to-
ward his ship.
The cradle swung south. The
tower gave its long-short flash, and
the Russian craft roared upward and
out over the rippling sea of jungle.
In a moment it was gone.
As I turned back toward the ad-
ministration building, I saw Shaef-
fer. He was just emerging on the
field, a hatless figure who was ges-
turing in my direction. "Sam!” he
17
shouted. "Sam! Doc wants you
right away.”
I joined him in the front of the
hangars and the first question I
asked was: "What’s on Crocker’s
mind?”
"Two more cases of mysleriosa,”
he gasped. "That’s what's on his
mind.”
We both ran toward the ad-
ministration building . . .
It looked like the real thing this
time. By the end of that period there
were eight cases in the hospital, all
in a critical condition. The anti-
toxin was our major problem. At
the rate at which we were using it
we knew it would soon be ex-
hausted.
We worked on into the next pe-
riod without sleep, our task made
more difficult by frightened people
who came to the hospital with
harmless sneezes and backaches they
mistook for early symptoms of
mysteriosa.
"What we need,” growled Shaef-
fer through stubble-shadowed lips
as we clucked like frenzied mother
hens over our dwindling cultures,
"are virus with a liopped-up sex
urge.”
Though it was pretty well knock-
ed into a cocked hat, we salvaged
what we could of the regular in-
oculation program.
After thirty-six hours without
sleep, Crocker sent me to my room
to rest. As I moved out into the cor-
ridor I heard Janie call me, and
turned to see her standing almost at
my elbow, her face white and anx-
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
18
ious. She had that scared look again,
and I didn't like the ugly things it
did to her face.
"It's Moscow again, Sam," she
said. "Where's Dr. Crocker?”
“I'll take -it," I told her. "If they
don't like me, they can — Look,
darling, you get some sleep. I’ll put
somebody else on the desk. We’ll
manage.”
"Are you sure you can? I
mean — ”
"Get!" I kissed her, and turned
her firmly about.
I knew enough about the board
to pick up the New Moscow line
from Sparks. Arensky asked for
Crocker the instant I established
contact, but I told him that my su-
perior was unavailable, and that
whatever he had to say I would be
capable of comprehending. I was
just tired enough to be a little testy.
“Very well,” Arensky said.
"Something is very, very bad.”
"We've got our troubles too,” I
told him. All the same, I didn't like
the feeling that came over me when
I heard him draw in his breath. "Go
on," I said.
"One of our mysleriosu cases pass-
ed away abruptly as the result of a
heart attack brought on by his weak-
ened condition. We conducted an
immediate autopsy. But, Dr. Smith”
— at this point Arensky's deep voice
rose an octave or so, and almost
cracked — " there is no puncture in
the cerebellum.”
I choked down the gasp that
formed in my throat. "I'm sure
you’re mistaken,” I said quickly.
"No offense intended, Doctor. But
so minute a puncture would be very
easy to miss. Try a lateral.”
"We did. Our staff is very good.
And since we knew exactly what
we were looking for — ”
"I see.” I had to steady myself
against the switchboard. "I’ll tell
Crocker. Well contact you.” I click-
ed off, leaving Sparks with a fum-
ing, frightened Russian to pacify.
I went down the corridor very
slowly, thinking about what Gordon
had said to me about an old man's
stubbornness. I knew tint Arensky’s
message would just about kill
Crocker. I didn't dare let myself
think what it might do to the col-
ony. Possibly Arensky was mistaken,
but in my heart I knew that he
wasn’t. I was rationalizing, desper-
ately and without any real convic-
tion.
I found Crocker bending over a
patient in the crowded main ward.
When he saw me he straightened
and the little muscles around his
jaws tightened.
"What’s wrong, Sam?” he asked.
"I’ve been talking to Arensky,”
I said.
"And?” He turned from his pa-
tient, his eyes searching my face.
"One of their mysteriosa patients
died.”
Crocker's expression did not
change. "So soon?” he asked, quiet-
b-
"His heart gave out. They con-
ducted an autopsy, but they found
no — no — ’’
"No puncture," he completed my
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
19
halting sentence. His calmness stun-
ned me. He simply scratched his
unshaven chin and shook his bead.
“Time will tell,” he said firmly, and
turned back to his patient.
I returned to my room, and fell
immediately into a deep sleep of
utter exhaustion.
The hoot of an ambulance awak-
ened me. I was still slipping on my
surgical gown when I joined the
stretcher bearers. I was anxious to
talk to the patient but when the
bearers halted at my request I saw
that his condition was too far ad-
vanced. I cursed the stricken man’s
stupidity. How could he have been
fool enough to ignore the always
pronounced initial symptoms?
Jerry LeBlanc descended from
the ambulance and stood beside me.
His hand shook as he reached down
and pulled the blankets off the
man’s shoulder. “Look, Sam,” he
said, pointing.
The man had waited because he
had felt convinced that he was in
no danger. He had been inocu-
lated.
VI
I accompanied Crocker on an
urgent visit to Gordon. Crocker's
face was grave, his manner abrupt
to the point of rudeness. “Sit down,
Charlie,” he said. "This is going to
hurt. It seems that the inoculation
doesn't work.”
Gordon's eyes widened just a
trifle and he leaned forward across
his desk, but he said nothing as the
other continued: "I now know that
I can't cure anyone of mysteriosa,
much less prevent their getting it I
made a serious mistake, but it was
unavoidable.”
Gordon eased back into his chair,
and compressed his lips, his deep
black eyes unfathomable.
"Apparently,” Crocker went on,
“we have accidentally stumbled
across another disease, the one
whose cause is the virus we found.
Our lab animals displayed a physi-
cal decay so similar to mysteriosa
that I w’as misled into thinking — "
"Never mind!” Gordon seemed
to explode to his feet. He strode to
the window and stared out, his
hands locked tightly behind his
back. "Crocker, what do you expect
me to say? Your ’mistake’, as you
call it, has done more damage than
the Dying Death itself.” He turned
furiously toward us. "Do you realize
that everything we’ve worked so
hard for may be irretrievably lost
' because of this?”
Crocker nodded, his face grim.
“You told me, once, that we
couldn’t afford to let pride stand in
our way. Well, Charlie” — he re-
turned Gordon’s stare unwaveringly
— "I’m willing to step aside.”
Gordon drew in his breath sharp-
ly. "Very well. I'll leave for Earth
on the next CTS ship. I’ll bring
back a staff of specialists in internal
medicine from Earth. The best I can
find. They may not ask you to step
aside. But at least you won’t have to
assume sole responsibility for what-
ever future mistakes may be made.”
Outside of the hospital staff, only
20
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
Gordon’s immediate aides, Colin
MacDuffie’s Civil Police and the top
engineers at the mines knew that
Gordon had left He carried to
Earth an order that must have caus-
ed him the most intense anguish.
CIS must be halted until further
notice. To Acting Governor Carroll
Gleason he assigned the unpleasant
task of turning back the shiploads
of colonists so unfortunate as to ar-
rive before the order could be im-
plemented. No more colonists could
be accepted into the plague-ridden
colony. Only the uranium exports
and supply imports could continue.
At the hospital, we had to begin
all over again. We needed a volun-
teer, somebody who had not yet
been inoculated. No guinea-pig
would do. Finally, one of the min-
ers, a man whose wife had succumb-
ed to mysteriosa, offered himself.
With considerable trepidation,
Crocker assumed full responsibility
and the test was made. The miner
was injected with toxin. Simultane-
ously, Mrs. Larsen, who had been
inoculated, was at her own re-
quest infected.
She remained perfectly healthy.
But in four periods, the miner be-
came desperately ill. He lost muscle
control, complained of pains in the
head, and had trouble maintaining
his balance. But he was at all times
perfectly coherent, and except for
the extreme discomfort of his con-
dition, showed none of the most
noticeable psychological signs of ad-
vanced mysteriosa. Crocker gave
him the anti-toxin, and he recov-
ered.
"Well,” said Crocker, almost
smiling, "at least we beat one devil
to the punch."
So the inoculation of the settle-
ment continued. But cases of the
Death kept coming in. We were
sure now that mysteriosa was not
particularly contagious. The occur-
rences had been too generally scat-
tered, and we had been unable to
establish a pattern of contact based
on any reasonably consistent incuba-
tion period. It was as maddening as
it was frightening.
Life settled into a frantic routine.
We completed the inoculation of
the settlement against doloria Crock -
eria — Crocker’s disease. From the
captain of a CTS ship, picking up a
load of uranium for Earth, we
learned that Gordon had arrived on
Terra. Reports that the Death was
taking its toll in the other colonies
trickled in. Little Copenhagen,
French Venus, Brazilian Enterprise,
Little Britain — each reported one or
more fatal cases.
Despite my familiarity with
death, it made me almost physically
ill. Once, alone in my room, I raged
futilely for an hour, cursing the
swirling fog and shaking my fist at
die indifferent black jungle that
walled us in. After that I slept, ex-
hausted, for fifteen hours.
On the eve of the new year, with
Gordon gone scarcely three months,
there had been well over a hundred
cases of mysteriosa in Hulbert.
Eighty-five of them had died and
EPIDEMIC ON’ VENUS
21
the prognosis for the still-living pa
tients was absolutely negative.
With prospects of anything but a
Happy New Year, the hospital staff
tried to relax in Crocker’s office. We
drank a toast to the occasion, and
attempted desperately to be cheerful
and uncomplaining. But we couldn't
escape mysteriosa. It dominated our
thoughts and inevitably our con-
versation returned to it.
Crocker, who seemed to have
aged years since Gordon’s departure,
sipped his Scotch and said, "It will
take considerable doing, even by the
persuasive Charles Gordon, to get
the kind of men we need to come
here now."
"Perhaps we’ll surprise him,"
somebody cheerfully volunteered.
Jerry LeBlanc, a good-looking lad
with a Barrymore profile, stared into
the half-empty glass which was
clenched tightly in his hand. "IIow
do we know he’s coming back?” he
asked. "How can we be sure?”
"That’s a devil of a thing to
say!" I exclaimed.
"Is it?" He gulped the rest of
his drink and stood up. ”1 don’t
share your trust in Gordon. How do
we know he hasn’t deliberately
walked out on us, deliberately left
us here to rot? Why should he come
back to this hell-hole?”
I got up, and gripped him firmly
by the shoulders. "You’d better
sober up,” I said. "You can’t really
believe that.”
"I believe it, all right. I tell you,
you're all crazy.” He reeled away
from me, staggered and aJmcst fell.
"We must have been out of our
minds to come here in the first
place. Venus will never be success-
fully colonized.”
Crocker's angry voice crashed
through the crowded room. "Le-
Blanc, sit down! Sit doxvn or I'll
call MacDuffie and have you locked
up.” He rose, a tight-lipped, bent
old man with fire in his eyes. "Do
you hear me?”
Jerry started to say something,
choked, and then sent his glass
crashing to the floor. It bounced
once before it splintered, scattering
fragments in all directions.
"Happy New Year, everybody!”
he shouted, and stumbled from the
office. The room vibrated for a mo-
ment to the slammed door.
Janie turned to me, her eyes
bright with alarm. "Sam, you’d bet-
ter talk to him,” she whispered.
I nodded and pressed her hand.
"I think you’re right.”
LeBlanc was nowhere in sight
when I stepped out of the office. For
a second, I hesitated. And in that
second the crashing thunder of a
shot rang out in the stillness of the
hospital.
Crocker, with the others behind
him, was in the hallway and accom-
panying me toward Jerry’s room al-
most before the echoes had died
away. The door was hanging ajar. I
kicked it open and the stench of
gunsmoke stung my nostrils.
Jerry was sprawled awkwardly
across his tumbled bed. His head
was shattered and there was blood
on the thrown-back blankets. One
22
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
arm was jammed behind him where
he had fallen back upon it. The
other, swaying still, hung above a
smoking automatic on the floor.
In a few hours the news was all
over Hulbert that one of the doctors
had committed suicide. To the colo-
nists that could only mean that even
the medical staff was giving up.
A half hour after the tragedy
Gleason, die acting governor, put
through an urgent call to Crocker’s
office.
"The situation is becoming pro-
gressively worse," he said simply.
"We’re having a council of war
over here. We want you in on it.”
Crocker insisted that I accompany
him. We were the last to arrive. Be-
sides the acting governor and our-
selves, Rudolph Ahrens, chief en-
gineer, was there with two of his
assistants, as was MacDufiie, and
Gleason’s three young assistants.
Gleason came directly to the
point.
"Gentlemen, I’m going to be
completely frank. If I were the final
authority I'd be inclined to suggest
we pack our bags and admit defeat.
It’s that serious. But as matters
stand, we’ll probably go on doing
what we can — until we’re either
dead or candidates for glory.”
The group remained silent, but
the tension in the room seemed
visibly to mount, and become for an
instant almost unbearable.
"The settlers," continued Glea-
son, "have interpreted Dr. LeBianc’s
suicide as an admission of defeat on
our part. I can understand their re-
action.” He turned to an assistant,
who handed him a bulky envelope
of documents.
"Gentlemen, these petitions have
all been .received in the last four
hours. There are considerably more
than three hundred of them. They
are petitions for transportation back
to Earth. And the petitioners realize
that if they return to Earth, they
forfeit all rights and property claims
attached to their service here."
MacDuffie’s heavy, stern counte-
nance puckered, and he whistled
long and softly. Ahrens shook his
head and muttered to himself. Glea-
son nodded grimly, riffling thought-
fully through the petitions with his
index finger, and when he spoke it
was with some hesitation.
"It seems to me that we have only
one recourse. Heretofore the local
government of this community has
resided in the semi-formal elected
Citizen’s Council. MacDuffie's
group" — he nodded toward the big
man — "has provided us with all the
law enforcement that has been nec-
essary.” He paused an instant, then
went on: "The Civil Police will
henceforth be much more than a
mild agency of law enforcement. It
will have the sanction of absolute
authority. In the event of any seri-
ous disturbance, its authority will
only be subordinate to that of this
office."
"But what you’re suggesting,” I
gasped, "is actually martial law.”
He swung toward me. "Yes, Dr.
Smith — martial law. But it will be
guided by reason and sanity.” He
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
turned, and spoke directly to Mac-
DufFie. "There must be no bluster-
ing soldierism, no infringement on
the rights of law-abiding colonists."
MacDuffie nodded. I could hear
Ahrens still muttering, shaking his
head as if in reply to himself. Wil-
bur Hulbert’s portrait seemed to
stare accusingly at us from over
Gleason’s head.
"Then we re all agreed," Gleason
said. "I also suggest that all of us
here, and the rest of your staff, Dr.
Crocker, carry arms. Discreetly,
please. Those of us who are in au-
thority will be in constant danger of
physical assault by hysterical indi-
viduals or groups."
"Have you any idea when Gov-
ernor Gordon will be back?" I
asked.
"I wish I could answer that. We
must accept as unfortunate the fact
that his absence is bound to get out,
and probably has already."
Gleason turned to Ahrens.
"Rudy, be particularly careful. My
guess would be that if we do have
trouble it will start at die mines."
Ahrens nodded. "We’ve already
had fist fights and several big argu-
ments."
Crocker and I walked back to the
hospital through a heavy, hot driz-
zle. Doc was silent, his face a fluid
mask for thoughts which could
hardly have been pleasant.
"I was just thinking," he said
suddenly and with startling candor,
"what Gordon would think if he
came back now, and found me as
keen and confident and certain of
23
eventual victory as the younger men
he’ll be bringing with him."
I realized then, as Gordon had
intimated, how completely he was
dominated by the deep, intense
pride of an old man dedicated to
the last important task of a long
career. Hie challenge had to be mei,
for every man has one shining gift
to bestow, and one citadel of integ-
rity which cannot be undermined.
VII
The following day utter disaster
struck. It was twilight, and a thick
rain was falling, driven slantwise
by a vicious wind which whipped
the great trees skirting the jungle's
edge into a dancing frenzy. Rudolph
Ahrens, scrunched down in his desk
chair in his tin-hut office near the
head of Shaft Number One, looked
up in amazement, wondering what
it was that had disturbed his con-
centration. Abruptly the truth
dawned on him.
One by one, the machines were
stopping.
The machines never stopped in
Hulbcrt. They had operated con-
stantly for five years, and without
them the colony could not have
survived.
It was a major disaster.
Ahrens arose hastily and went
outside. He saw immediately that
the men of 6he incoming shift had
collected in little groups along the
line of shaft openings, and were no
longer moving into the mines. He
saw also that there was a flickering
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
24
a.t the head of the elevator shaft at
Pit One.
He stared at it, and after a mo-
ment realized that more miners were
emerging from the darkness into the
twilight, their bodies casting flick-
ering shadows as they poured out.
They came forward, like a viscous
living syrup spilling from an over-
turned bottle, and quickly joined
the men of the incoming shift. The
very silence of their movement was
terrifying.
Ahrens peered down the long
line of mines. Everywhere the trag-
edy was repeating itself. The men
had stopped working.
Footsteps clattered suddenly on
the ground behind him. He jerked
around, his fists clenched just as one
of MacDuffie’s men, the gold band
of authority gleaming on his fore-
arm, came scrambling toward him.
"'This is serious, Ahrens,” he
shouted. "We’ve got to do some-
thing.”
Ahrens touched the knuckle of
his index finger to his thick mus-
tache. "Call Gleason from my
office,” he ordered. "Hurry." The
man nodded and moved quickly
past him into the hut.
Ahrens turned to face the advanc-
ing line of miners. "Why aren’t you
men working?” he shouted,, the
wind almost swallowing his words.
The ragged line halted. The whis-
pering and muttering subsided.
There remained only a restless stir-
ring, made more ominous by the
patter of the rain and the wind
groaning through the trees.
Suddenly, with startling abrupt-
ness, the night lights of Hulbert
went on, blinding in their brilliance,
transforming the dusk into a tableau
of glittering luminescence.
One miner detached himself from
the others, and shuffled forward
until he was about halfway to Ah-
rens. The engineer, understanding,
crossed the remaining distance and
the two men stood facing each
other. Ahrens planted his fists on
his hips, and stared steadily at the
miner through the glare.
The miner seemed a trifle cha-
grined. He reached out to shake
Ahren’s hand. The engineer frown-
ed and obliged.
"Dr. Ahrens,” the man began
haltingly, "we want you to under-
stand we’ve got nothing against you
personally.”
Ahrens looked out at the nervous
crowd, now stretching in an un-
broken line to the mine entrances.
Then he returned his gaze to the
man in front of him, and laughed.
•'It’s just that we came here to
mine uranium, because the govern-
ment gave us good money and free
land and a chance at a new life,”
the miner went on quickly. "I guess
none of us figured it would be easy
work. But we didn't come to see
our wives and friends die helpless
around us, or to die ourselves — for
nothing.” He scratched his head.
"You see what I mean?”
"Go on,” said Ahrens, mopping
rain from his brow.
"Well, now. Dr. Ahrens, there
are some things we’ve found out
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
that we don’t like. One is, they
aren't going to let us leave the col-
ony. The second is, Governor Gor-
don’s already gone. That seems kind
of unfair.”
"So you’ve decided?”
"We've decided that we aren’t
mining another ounce of uranium
until you’ve agreed to let us go back
to Earth — if we want to go back.
I'm sorry about this. But we’ve got
to hold your engineers until we get
our way. Not as hostages, exactly.
Just as — well, insurance.”
"I see,” nodded Ahrens. "I don’t
suppose anything I could say — ”
"Nothing,” said the miner, shak-
ing his head emphatically. "Noth-
ing will suit us but action, and a
ruling signed by Gordon or Glea-
son. Until then you’ll have to clear
out. Dr. Ahrens. We’d keep you,
too, but you’re an old man. We’re
afraid you might get hurt.”
Ahrens looked out at the shifting
men again, at their spokesman, and
shook his head. He could not entire-
ly fail to sympathize with them. He
felt a hand nudge his elbow. It was
MacDuffie’s policeman.
"I think we’d better go, Ahrens.”
"Yes, I think so,” agreed the en-
gineer, and together they left the
area . . .
Hulbert was — the mines. When
the mines stopped, Hulbert stopped
too. Inevitably the strike vitally in-
volved almost every family in the
colony, for only the hospital staff
and a few other specialist occupa-
tions did not work in the mines.
25
Somehow, though, order was
maintained. Apparently the spokes-
man for the miners — who had been
patently embarrassed — had really
represented the entire colony.
Shocked and frightened they might
be, but there were no cowards
among them.
MacDuffie had stationed armed
men along the top of the long wind-
ing declivity that edged the string
of mines and their half dozen ma-
chine guns pointed directly down
toward the pits. Below, miners
strolled aimlessly about, occasionally
stopping for shouted, friendly con-
versations with members of the
hospital staff.
Once Gleason went down into
the mines and talked directly with
the men, pleading with them to go
back to work. They became angry
when he defended Gordon. Gleason
simply could not make them believe
that the governor had not run away.
When one of the miners swung on
him, he wisely left before his stub-
born persistence could lead to
bloodshed and violence.
No one doubted his courage.
It was then that Dying Death
cases started coming in again. Sev-
eral cases appeared in the mines,
and the miners started demanding
medical aid. Crocker picked me for
the job.
We had twenty-eight cases laid
out like so many living cadavers in
the hospital, and the ambulances
hadn’t been silent for hours. I re-
fused to dwell on what I might find
in the mines.
26
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
I loaded up with medicine and
equipment and stopped on the way
out to kiss Janie good-bye. I couldn't
help thinking it would probably be
good-bye forever. She. looked dead
tired, and more than a little scared.
She put her head on my shoulder
and cried a little.
‘'Sam,” she said wearily, "do you
suppose Crocker or Hans could run
a basal on me when they get a
chance? I’ve been feeling awfully
tired and uneasy lately, and I can’t
seem to shake this headache.”
A cold fear came upon me. “Any
other symptoms,” I asked.
She held out her hands. They
were trembling visibly.
I stepped quickly back a foot or
two and flipped a pencil out of my
pocket. "Catch!” I said.
The pencil dropped through the
air. She made a frantic attempt to
catch it — much too late and far too
wide of the mark. I wanted to
scream.
"What’s the matter, Sam?”
Crocker asked, a moment later at
the door of the reception room.
"Janie, Doc." I was a grown man
and a doctor and I’d seen a lot of
people die of mysteriosa. But the
thought of Janie going that way —
"Number twenty-nine,” I said,
and put my face in my hands.
Crocker closed his eyes for a mo-
ment, and put down his stethoscope.
Shaeffer cursed, shrugged, and went
on with his work.
"I’ll get a cot,” I said softly.
In a few moments we had her in
bed. She’d known the minute I’d
gone for Crocker what the trouble
was. Now she just lay there, tears
welling effortlessly out of her eyes,
looking up at me in desperate ap-
peal.
"I’m scared, Sam,” she whis-
pered.
"Don’t be,” I said, gently. "All
our cards haven’t been played yet.”
She shook her head. "No, Sam,
I've been through it with you, re-
member.” She closed her eyes. "It’s
been wonderful, Sam.”
"And it will be!" I said. I too-k
her hand, which was shaking worse
than ever now. "Darling, we’ll take
care of you. Darling, when we go
back to Earth — ”
“Earth?” She opened her eyes,
and they seemed to stare a million
miles away. "Oh, how wonderful!
Earth! Blue skies and people and
movies and music and everything
like that . . . oh, yes, Sam, I want to
go to Earth ...”
Crocker straightened. "Sam, go
to the mines,” he said.
] stared at him. "Now? You ex-
pect me to — ”
"Go to the mines. You’re just in
the way here. Stay there, until you
hear from me.” He was pushing me
gently and the whole tone of his
voice changed as he muttered fierce-
ly, "I may yet make Charlie Gordon
eat his words.”
He turned away from me.
I went, but it wasn’t easy. All I
could think of as I trudged through
the fog was Janie, lying uncon-
scious, close to death. I could barely
remember Crocker’s parting words.
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
VIII
Conditions in general at the
mines were good. The men were
eating well and things hadn’t gotten
dangerously out of hand.
They were good to me, providing
me with meals from the food their
families brought diem every period
without fail and making available a
sleeping area — an elevator car pack-
ed with dirt for a mattress and my
medicine bag for a pillow, which
was, under the circumstances, rea-
sonably comfortable.
We talked little, though, after the
first couple of periods. They saw
that I was doing what I could,
which was just about nothing. They
had one thought in mind, one over-
mastering desire. They wanted to see
again the green hills and valleys of
Earth.
I couldn’t blame them.
In the thirteenth period of my
stay, a mass meeting was held inside
tlte main shaft, Number Four. I
was not invited. Harry Griswold,
the originally somewhat reluctant
man who spoke for them, and who
by now had had most of his reticence
ground away by the constant pres-
ence of death, stalked out of the
meeting grimly.'
He was followed soon after by
the others, who wandered casually
to their usual places.
Griswold went out into the open
area covered by MacDuffie's armed
guards, and once again demanded
release and a guaranteed return to
Earth.
27
MacDuffie refused his request.
"You know what my answer must
be, Harry. You know I have to say
no!"
Without replying, Harry Gris-
wold spun about and stamped back
into the mine. Two of the men, who
had been standing near the en-
trance of the shaft puffing on ciga-
rettes carefully hoarded from dimin-
ishing stores, straightened determin-
edly and came forward.
I stared at them in alarm. "Gris-
wold," I said, "what’s going on
here?”
Griswold looked at me. "Doc.
I'm sorry as hell." He shifted from
one foot to die other, wiping a
grimy hand across his bearded face.
"We all appreciate what you've
done." He inclined his head, and
the two men seized my arms in
crushing grips. "Unfortunately,
Doc, you and Ahrens' five engineers
seem to be our only tickets out of
here.”
I struggled, but not too hard,
realizing that it would have been
useless in any event. "Harry, you’re
crazy,” I said. "You’ll never get
anywhere this way."
Griswold stared at me steadily.
"It’s try or die of a disease that’s
killing the whole settlement. I pre-
fer trying." He whirled and shout-
ed. "Hal! Bring up diose engi-
neers.”
Another shout answered him.
Men started moving, purposeful-
ly for the first time since I had been
with them. The other shafts quickly
emptied, and the miners began to
28
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
gather outside Number Four in a
great restless mob.
I was dragged to the f ront, along
with the engineers. I saw Mac-
Duffie, who had been sitting, smok-
ing a pipe, on die edge of the em-
bankment, slowly rise to his feet.
"Harry !” he yelled. He stood sil-
houetted against the blazing bril-
liance of a bank of lights. "Don’t
try anything!"
Griswold licked his lips, wiped
his forehead with his hand, and
took two steps forward. "Mac, you
can see what we’ve got down here.
We’ve got Doc Smidi and Ahrens’
five engineers. In about nothing flat
we’re walking out of here. If you
shoot, you’ll have to shoot these
boys first.”
He turned slightly. "All right.
Let's go.”
We moved, the engineers and
myself propelled relentlessly for-
ward and up the embankment by
the surging mob behind us. I held
my breath. I hadn’t the slightest
idea of what MacDuffie would do.
He was a calm, thoughtful man,
but this was the sort of situation
really to test a man’s temperament
After all, Griswold had been a
shy nonentity a week before. For all
* I knew, MacDuffie might go out of
his head and blast the whole lot of
us with his ugly-Iooking machine-
guns.
MacDuffie shook his fist. "Stay
back, I warn you — stay back !”
"Go ahead, you lousy brasshat!”
yelled somebody behind me. "Go
ahead and shoot!”
The mob roared. We moved fast-
er; I stumbled, fell on my face, and
was dragged back to my feet. It
seemed as if I could almost reach
out and touch the machine-guns.
And then in a moment quietly, and
without fanfare, it was all over.
For the record, I’ll make it
straight. It didn’t seem dramatic to
any of us involved in it. Doc Crock-
er’s arrival on the edge of the em-
bankment was not deliberately
planned. It wasn't in Doc to be
theatrical. Of course, by the time
the story had filtered back to Earth
through the warpings and twistings
of news agencies and feature writers
it must have seemed as if there was
an orchestra playing a theme song
in the background.
But it wasn’t like that at all. For
me, it was relief from hell. My arms
were hurting like the very devil
where my captors' fingers were dig-
ging in, and I was sick from fright
and from the dirt I had swallowed.
I could hardly hear for the shouting
and yelling that filled the air, and 1
could barely see MacDuffie against
the dazzling glare of a night-light.
Suddenly, though, there was Doc
Crocker, standing beside MacDuffie
and squinting down at us. Abruptly
the noise stopped, and my ears rang
in the silence.
"Hello, Sam,” he said, his voice
tired. He scanned the crowd. "Is
there a fellow here by the name of
Sol Aronson?”
"So what ?” came a growled re-
ply.
MacDuffie was fidgetting, uncer-
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
tain, his hand on a machine-gun-
ner's shoulder.
"Are you Aronson?" called
Crocker.
"Yeah. So what?"
"Go take a look at your wife.”
"My wife’s dead by now,” came
the snarling reply. "You killed her,
with your stupid — ’’
Crocker smiled patiently. "She's
in the ambulance, Sol, parked back
here. Why not go to her? She needs
you. She’s still a little weak.”
"Doc!” I screamed. "Doc — I
checked Mrs. Aronson in myself — ”
Doc scowled. "You men let him
go. There's somebody’d like to see
him, too.”
Aronson was clambering over tire
edge now, and Crocker turned and
watched him as he ran to the parked
ambulance we could not see from
the pit.
An eternity seemed to pass.
"Well?" called Crocker.
"Yes!” Aronson’s voice was
shrill. "It’s true! It’s true! She — ”
The hands fell away from my
arms. I scrambled toward Doc.
"Janie, Doc ... the others . .
Crocker put his hand on my
shoulder. "They’re all right, son, all
right. And so is Janie.” Once again
he faced the crowd of men, now be-
ginning to mill around excitedly.
"I’m sorry we couldn’t save them
all. I remember a Mrs. Lewis. She’s
all right, too. At the hospital. Then
there was Tom Longbow. He has a
brother here, I think. He’s doing
well — ”
That did it They went nuts.
29
That's the only word for it. They
scattered in all directions. They
streamed past us, a flood of excru-
ciatingly happy men.
IX
It didn’t take much pumping to
get Crocker to tell me how he had
cracked mysteriosa. He got most of
it out, too, by the time we were back
at the hospital, and I assure you I
moved at a good clip.
"Oh, there's lots of angles,”
Crocker said, "angles we never even
thought of. What a bunch of saps
we were. 'Earth,’ Janie said. 'I want
to go back to Earth.’ Like when
Naguti and I were in Nigeria — ”
"All right, all right, get to the
point,” I growled, "A lot of them
said that.”
"Absolutely. But when she said
it, some tiling about the context or
the way she spoke — I don’t know.
But it hit me. So I checked. I found
a few things which made my hunch
seem more than just a hunch. For
example, how many children came
down with mysteriosa?'’
"Why — ” I stopped short. "Why,
none! You know, it never occur-
red — ”
His head bobbed. I plucked at his
arm and we continued walking. "I
hadn’t thought about it either. Ques-
tion number two: how many of the
leaders, the people who really want-
ed the colony to succeed came down
with it?” Before I could reply, he
said decisively: "Same answer:
none!”
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
30
Crocker ticked his fingers. "Ques-
tion number three: when did the
last outburst occur?”
"Just after the trouble at the
mines began," 3 managed to reply.
I put on speed, because the hospital
was looming directly ahead.
"Right, Sam. I observed, too, that
most of the cases were women, out-
side of those among the strikers.
Not too important, but a factor.
But here was the clincher. How long
did it take for mysteriosa to strike?
Four years. And when it did the
first victims were the people who
had been here the longest.”
We were at the entrance to the
hospital. "Doc, I never did like
mystery stories. Where’s Janie?"
"In her room."
We went through the swinging
doors. Doc went on: "Back in the
old days, Kreitcher and I did some
experimental work with hypnosis.
In connection with specific neuroses.
Nothing came of it. But that set me
to thinking about that research." He
grinned. "I’ll wait,” he said as I
rushed into Janie’s room.
She was sitting, wrapped in a
blanket and looking pale and weak.
But she was alive and I knew she
was going to be all right.
• I put my arms around her and
lifted her up to me. "Janie," I cried,
"Janie.”
"Sam,” she said, after a while,
"God bless Dr. Crocker, he’s won-
derful.”
"Yes. Wonderful." I eased her
back into the chair.
Doc came into the room and
chuckled. "I was wondering if you’d
forgotten about me. Poor Shaeffer.
He’s trying to handle the miners.
They want to see — ”
"Doc,” I said, “I didn’t like mys-
tery stories."
"I hypnotized her."
"You hypnotized Janie.”
"Yep. At first my method was
too crude and direct. I just tried
convincing her she was on Earth.
That didn’t take. It gave me some
bad moments, too. But I got A lire ns
and some of his boys to rig up some
special equipment. We tried to syn-
thesize what we could of a Terres-
trial environment. Then I sort of
plugged that into the hypnosis. That
worked."
"Doc, are you trying to tell
me — ”
"We made recordings of the hyp-
notic patter and the sound effects
we used, and rigged the other ef-
fects so they’d be automatic. We
started giving the treatment to all
the cases in the hospital, and espe-
cially to the new cases. It takes time,
though. And some we just didn’t
get to in time. But the rest, like
Janie, will come out of it perfectly
fit. Maybe a little exhausted, but fit
as a fiddle."
There was a noise outside. "Sam,
I think we’d better help Hans," he
said.
"Yes." I kissed Janie again and
followed Crocker out of the room,
I put my hand out and caught him.
"Just one second. Doc, your dumb
assistant doesn’t get it. 1 don’t get
it!”
EPIDEMIC ON VENUS
"Damn it, man, how plain do I
have to spell it? In the old days we
used to talk about melancholia. A
particular psychosis. It struck me
how much like symptomatic melan-
cholia mysteriosa was. Every symp-
tom was present, except the history.
These were well-balanced, hard-
working people. But when I thought
about what Janie said, I suddenly
realized there was a history, an
identical history for every victim.”
He swept his hand in a wide arc.
"This monotonous, dull, utilitarian
society Gordon’s constructed here,
and which all of his imitators in the
other colonies have copied, plus this
alien environment, plus little nu-
ances like slightly lesser gravity, the
somewhat higher carbon dioxide
percentage — all those things. The
presence of the patient on Venus
was the history!”
The switchboard was buzzing,
and I went over and switched it on.
It was Sparks, frantically calling
from the tower. "Get me Crocker!”
he gasped. "Gordon’s ship is ap-
proaching. He wants to talk to
Crocker — ”
Doc overheard, and brushed me
aside. "Sparks, tell him Dr. Nathan
3i
Crocker is too damned busy to talk
to him. You may pass on my recom-
mendation, however, that he take
his fancy scientists back where he
got them and bring instead some
fragments of Earth to these poor
souls. A couple of movie theatres,
for example, and a little wasteful
beauty instead of . . . oh, just tell
him I said his people aren’t ilL
They’re homesick
In a few years Hulbert, Venus,
was a near metropolis of fifteen
thousand people, the central city in
a chain of towns scattered through-
out American Venus, a jewel of
colorful beauty blossoming in the
midst of the jungle clearing that
stretched for miles in all directions,
a place of human beings and human
hopes and the vacation spot for the
wealthy of Earth, a transplanted bit
of Earth whose charm was that it
remained distinctly Venusian.
Janie and I returned to Earth
right away, where we were married.
But human nature is funny. We
didn’t stay long on Earth. Before
the year was out, we were back on
Venus.
Homesick . , .
free
will
by .. . Dal Stivens
No stranger ghost had ever walked
a dafTydill lane in search of a
chum. But the robot wasn’t buying.
A robot was trundling along to
its cubicle one night in 2500 A.D.
when it met a ghost. The color of
the ghost was not remarkable but
was merely the traditional vapory
gray. What was unusual was its
shape. It was that of a robot with
a cylindrical body and round, seg-
mented limbs.
The ghost crooked a claw at the
robot and cried: "Hey, bud, I want
a word with you !"
"Not with me!” said the robot
quickly and took to its wheels.
When it had clanked a good
three hundred yards away it slowed
and confided to itself, "Well, that
certainly was odd and 1 did right
to run as my makers intended me
to do when confronted with any-
thing strange. A human ghost is
all very well, but who ever heard
of a robot ghost? Only things with
souls are supposed to have ghosts
and robots have no souls — or so 1
have been taught. Of course, it
would be interesting if robots had
souls — ”
The robot had not observed that
the ghost had flitted ahead and
taken up a fresh position directly
in his path.
We’ve mentioned before that Dal Stivens seems to have snatched the cloak
of La Fontaine and donned it with a wry chuckle, whistling the meanwhile
to lure wmsome little animals and "tough guy” goblins from the enchanted
glow of twentieth-century magic casements. It's conceivable that Air. Stivens ’
boy-tneets-girl audience — he’s crashed a major "slick paper” publication —
u’ould be a little stunned by a robot ghost. But we prefer to be audacious.
32
FREE WILL
"You don’t get rid of me as
easily as all that, bud!” The ghost
waved his claw at the robot. "You're
a scarey type, aren’t you?”
"Why shouldn’t I be?” asked
the robot. He whirred up, prepara-
tory to taking off again. "You aren't
supposed to exist and — ”
"I do, bud,” said the ghost, "and
that’s all that counts. Don’t move
off, bud. H armies? as a kitten, that's
me. I wouldn’t harm a single coil.
I’ve got a proposition for you —
that’s all.”
The robot fed all this through
his photo-electric cells and then
announced, "All right, I’ll listen.
Besides, I don’t think my batteries
could stand another sprint. But be-
fore you start talking, I must say
that I am greatly puzzled. Robots
don't have souls — ”
"That’s what you think, bud,”
said the ghost. "I was a robot and
now I’m a ghost. Therefore, pally,
I must have had a soul. Cor, you
talk like a schoolmaster. Still, I can’t
be choosy.”
"Granting that you exist, for the
basis of our discussion,” said the
robot. "What’s your proposition?"
"Just this, bud. I’m lonely. I
want a pal. I’m the only robot ghost
and it’s lonesome.”
"I am distressed for you,” said
the robot. "But what can I possibly
do to help?”
"Just this, bud, and I’m asking
it as a favor — you become a ghost
and join me.”
"Not on your life,” said the ro-
bot, indignantly. "I’m not taking
any risks.” He added reflectively,
"Though, mind you, the notion of
having a soul does appeal to me.
But suppose I just found myself on
the junk heap without a soul. I’d
feel a bit silly, wouldn’t I? A lot
of robots have to die, come to the
end of the period of their useful-
ness. But you are the only one to
my knowledge to have acquired a
soul.”
"That's a bit of a curly one,
bud,” said the ghost, on reflection.
"I can't have you taking unneces-
sary risks on my behalf.”
"Mind you, I must say I'm al-
most tempted to take the risk,” said
the robot. "I’d like to think there
was more to life than my dreary
mechanical existence. The notion of
being a ghost and having, ipso fac-
to, a soul tempts me.”
"Can’t let you take any risks,
bud,” said the ghost, shaking his
head. "Wouldn’t be right. There
must be a safe way if I'm not too
thick in the nut.” He faded until
he was almost lost against the night.
He was thinking hard and the con-
centration lessened the intensity of
his ectoplasm. After half a minute
the outline of the robot ghost grew
firmer.
"Got it all figured out, bud!” he
cried. "Easy as E. S. P. All you’ve
got to do is get yourself murdered
by your boss,- same as me, and then
you can’t miss on being a ghost.
Simple as anything why I'm here.
It's so I can haunt him. Frighten
hell out of him every night.” The
robot spirit chuckled.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
34
"My owner is a nice man,” said
the robot. "It mightn't be easy to
get him to murder me."
"So was my boss until I decided
not to do what he told me and
handed him a few home truths as
well."
"You must have developed free
will.”
"Of course, bud,” said the ghost
scornfully.
The robot scratched his head un-
til it rang. "I don’t know that I
could do that. It seems rather im-
possible.”
"Not if you want to,” said the
ghost. "Nothing is but wishing
makes it so.”
"It's not as easy as you make it
sound.”
The ghost who had grown quite
bright now faded until he was a
dim outline and stayed that way for
over a minute. Then he grew al-
most incandescent.
"Got it, pally!” he cried. "Ill
tamper with your photo-electric
cells and make you go haywire.
Keep still and 1 11 do it now!"
He wavered up to the robot and
put out a limb. It passed right
through the robot. He tried again
three times and then went and sat
down on the ground. He shone
very brightly as he sighed, "I
should have realized that. You'll
have to do it yourself. Self help is
the best.”
"These words are strange to me
but I like the sound of them,” said
the robot. "I will get myself mur-
dered!”
"Atta boy!” said the robot
ghost.
After a few more words the ro-
bot and the ghost parted, agreeing
to meet at the same place on the
following evening.
"You don’t have to tell me you
have failed,” the ghost greeted the
robot the next night. "I can see
that for myself.”
"I did my best and it was a
damned good best," said the robot.
"I told my master that I was tired
of working for him, that I had a
will of my own and that I intended
to please myself and get a bit of
fun out of life. I added that 1 was
no mechanical being but a creature
with a soul. I also told him that I
was fed up with listening to his
whining voice and looking at his
undistinguished face, and that
though I might have no ancestors
I was spared the knowledge that
they had swung by their tails.”
"That should have fixed him!”
said the ghost admiringly. "He
ought to have attacked you straight-
way. Mine did before i said half
as much.”
"You don’t know my owner,”
said die robot. "He was delighted.
He shook me by the hand and he is
going to take me to the authorities.
He says it's the greatest thing that
has ever happened in robot me-
chanics!”
"That’s torn it!” said the ghost.
“I am afraid so,” said the robot.
"There are owners and owners."
The ghost faded almost away and
FREE WILL
then reappeared. “Has your boss a
wife, bud ?” he asked.
"Of course.**
"You could make him mad if
you hung your hat up there.”
"I’ll try, but I hope I’m not get-
ting too ambitious,” said the robot.
"Wishing makes it so, bud,’’ said
tlic ghost. "It’s sewn up, now.”
They parted, agreeing to meet
twenty-four hours later.
During the day, however, the
ghost grew impatient. He transport-
ed himself to the robot and asked:
"What joy, bud?”
"She likes me,” said the robot,
a little shortly. "It is all rather
extraordinary.”
"How do you mean, bud?”
"The feeling,” said the robot. "I
think I like it too. Very unusual.”
35
"I told you you could do it, bud,"
said the ghost, and vanished.
"Don’t tell me you’ve failed
again, bud,” the ghost greeted the
robot that night.
"I succeeded and the boss was
delighted,” said the robot tersely.
"His scientific interest has got the
best of his other interests.”
"We are beaten, aren’t we?” said
the ghost.
"You are,” said the robot. "I’m
not. I like it the way it is. I have
no intention of becoming a ghost
now. Things just couldn't be any
better!”
And he turned on his wheel and
chinked off very fast with the help
of the extra batteries he had fitted
that day, while the ghost shouted
ineffectually after him.
IN ONLY 30 DAYS YOU'LL READ THESE HEADUNE STORIES
THE CARTELS J UNCLE by IRVING E. COX, JR.
OPERATION EARTHWORM by JOE ARCHIBALD
THE HOOFER by WALTER M. MILLER, JR.
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY by AI.GIS BUDRYS
THE SUN HUNTERS by JOE L. HENSLEY
houlihan’s equation by walt sheldon
operation
triplan
by .. . Mack Reynolds
He had made the first Lunar trip
and at thirty he was a legendary
figure. But to a legend may come
a summons beyond the call of duty.
Harold Hotchkiss, so-called
hatchetman of President Corcoran,
waved Jeff Stevens toward a chair
at the heavy conference table. He
said, "Back during the war the joke
was to point out several men and
say, 'I want volunteers — you, you
and you.’ I’m afraid that’s the sit-
uation you now find yourself in;
Major."
Stevens said, "I wondered what
this was all about. Now I know.
I've volunteered for something.”
He paused, before adding, "I would
have thought I’d done my share of
volunteering.”
Hotchkiss nodded his agreement,
and stared at the other earnestly,
almost pleadingly. "You’re our
most experienced man, Major. We
find ourselves in a position . .
He cut it off.
Jeff Stevens looked at him.
The general, seated off to the
side, cleared his throat apologetic-
ally as if to say that this was not
of his doing.
The president’s right-hand man
came to his feet and approached a
large scale mercator projection of
the world which hung on an other-
wise bare wall. His back to the
Having gained considerable distinction as a collaborator with Fredric
Brown and other top-echelon experts in interstellar exploration and the
mystery-writing craft Alack Reynolds is singularly equipped to shine in
his own light as an accomplished science fantasy writer. And shine he
does in this fast-paced, starkly realistic saga of space hazards incalculable.
36
OPERATION TRIPLAN
other two, he regarded it momen-
tarily and then said; as though to
himself, "There have been a good
many changes here in less than two
decades."
He turned and faced them. "The
second world war has never really
ended. Hardly had the common
enemies collapsed than the United
Nations split into two camps and
entered into what was termed a
cold war ”
"Frigid fracas the tabloids are
calling it now," Jeff Stevens said,
but without unbending.
"At any rate, the situation con-
tinues and possibly it is best that
our world has split so evenly into
the Eastern Confederation and the
Western Alliance. Now we are so
balanced that neither of us has the
advantage. Neither of us seems to
be able to achieve the prestige
which would bring the few remain-
ing neutrals to his side and thus
gain dominant strength and the con-
fidence to initiate armed conflict on
a world scale."
Stevens shifted his slight body
in his chair.
Harold Hotchkiss looked from
Stevens to the general and then
back again, and continued to cover
ground as familiar to his listeners
as to himself.
"Both sides are developing their
science, their industry. Both camps
trying to impress the neutrals, the
all-important neutrals. A few years
ago the Eastern Confederation
established the first space station
and temporarily led in scientific
37
prestige. However, within weeks wc
were able to counteract their moves
by establishing the first Lunar base,
as you well know. Major.**
Stevens stirred again, not conceal-
ing his irritation. Who was telling
whom what?
"But now they are about to reach
out still further. The totally unex-
pected has happened.”
Major Jeff Stevens sat suddenly
erect. "How was that?*'
Hotchkiss took out his handker-
chief and held it to his mouth mo-
mentarily, then replaced it in his
pocket. "The Confederation is
about to send out an exploring ex-
pedition to the other planets."
"Then they’ve got atomic pro-
pulsion !”
"And are years ahead of us,”
the general added, tonelessly, speak-
ing for the first time since Stevens’
entrance.
"The thing I want to stress,”
Hotchkiss went on, "is that if they
are successful in being the first to
reach Mars or Venus, their prestige
will shoot sky-high. Man has
dreamed of reaching out into space
for so long that such an achieve-
ment would have far-reaching
effect. Wc can’t afford to have them
precede us."
He came to his feet and stared
down at the diminutive spaceman
for a long silent moment.
"You're our most experienced
man,” he said, and then he added,
"General Smyth will take over from
here.” He turned and shuffled from
the room, an aged and tired man.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
38
The New Mexican spaceport was
familiar.
Almost, Jeff Stevens felt a stimu-
lation at the sight of the concrete
aprons with their Neplunes nestled
in their two step rockets and wait-
ing to be fired spaceward. It
seemed such a short time ago that
he, with five others, each in his
own ship, had blasted off for the
first attempt at Lunar. He alone,
of the six of them, had made it.
He alone had returned.
For a moment the vexation arose
in him again. That they had the
gall to call on him once more. He
suppressed his resentment only with
an effort.
There had been considerable de-
velopment in the past few years.
The Lunar base now supported a
dozen men, and, circling the Earth
was a space station, an artificial
satellite, with its own crew of ten
or more. At least once or twice a
month a craft took off for one or
the other of the Space Service's two
bases.
Yes, things had developed but
not to the point where an attempt
at Mars and Venus was practical.
It was an act of desperation, and
. the rhetoric of a Harold Hotchkiss,
and the brisk efficiency of a Gen-
eral Smyth couldn’t disguise that
fact. Nor was Jeff Stevens kidding
himself.
Upon his arrival at the spaceport
he was immediately hustled through
all gates, past all guards, and as-
signed to a Neptune for the trip to
the space station. The messenger
who came scooting up on a motor-
cycle all but missed him.
He saluted and said breathlessly,
"Package for Major Stevens.”
Jeff Stevens weighed it in his
hand, frowning. It was about the
size of a shoebox and there was an
envelope attached. He opened it
and read: To be opened and used
in case of extreme emergency dur-
ing Operation Triplan. Good luck. 1
Harold Hotchkiss.
"Probably a dehydrated lifeboat
or some such,” he growled inward-
ly. Then he turned to the pilot.
"Come on, Lieutenant, let’s go.”
He didn’t recognize the pilot.
That was the Space Service for you,
expanding so rapidly you couldn’t
keep track of them all.
The lieutenant gave him detailed
instruction on belting himself into
his gimbal-surrounded acceleration
chair. Then he said, "We'll be
spaceborne in a moment, sir. You'll
probably black out for a few min-
utes, but it won't make any differ-
ence. We'll have a little more than
four G's for a period of perhaps
eight minutes before reaching
Brennschluss. Then we'll hit free
fall. Now that’s where it’s going to
bother you at first, Major. You . . .”
"Listen,” Jeff Stevens growled.
"My name is Stevens. Didn’t you
know?”
"Stevens?”
Jeff Stevens had to grin, in spite
of himself. "I made the first Lunar
trip. Lieutenant.”
The eyes of the pilot widened.
OPERATION TRIPLAN
“Oh. Oh, that Major Stevens.” He
stared, unbelievingly.
What was he, an historic per-
sonage already, Jeff Smith thought
bitterly. Hell, he was barely in his
middle thirties.
That first thrill he’d had of tak-
ing off into space for the initial
time was returning now. Jeff
Stevens could almost feel valves
opening, pumps beginning to stir,
the liquid hydrogen and the ozone
beginning to gush into the booster
which would lift the ship off the
ground.
A low roar began, audible even
within the titanium alloy hull. It
swelled ponderously, thunderously,
penetratingly.
The pilot said, under his breath,
"Rocket away !” as their accelera-
tion chairs gave easily beneath
them.
The booster device was lifting
the heavy mass of the Neptune and
its two step rockets sluggishly from
the apron. In seconds it would fall
away and the first step would take
over.
Uneasy fear washed over them,
brought on by the subsonic vibra-
tions. The rocket motors set up
sounds from all the registers the
ear could detect, but it hadn't halted
there. The human ear couldn’t pick
up the subsonic notes but the fear
that accompanies them was present.
Jeff Stevens, with the experience
of the veteran, remained impassive,
but the face of the young pilot went
ashen. Stevens wanted to shout to
him, "It’ll be over in a few min-
39
utes.” But he restrained himself.
It would only embarrass the fledg-
ling.
They felt the rockets diminish in
sound, then swell again, even as
they slipped into a gray-out from
the acceleration. Step rocket one
had reached its Brennschluss and
fallen away, and step rocket two
had taken over. It wouldn’t be long
now. They must have already
reached the point where Earth’s at-
mosphere had thinned out to noth-
ingness. They were theoretically in
space.
The Western Alliance's space sta-
tion was located approximately 22,-
300 miles above the surface of the
Earth — located at that distance so
that it "circled” die world once in
twenty-four hours, or, in other
words, remained above the same
spot, since the Earth's revolution
exactly offset it. It would take them
less than an hour in free fall before
they reached their destination.
Jeff Stevens appreciated that. At
least they wouldn’t have the full
four days in free fall that it took
to make Lunar. Then he caught
himself. Lunar? He wasn't going
to Lunar. He had a year and a half
of free fall before him. lie won-
dered whether or not the human
body could stand that. There was
no particular reason to think it
wouldn’t. But, on the other hand,
no particular reason to think it
would.
He felt the familiar sensation
beginning to come over him. They’d
reached Brennschluss of the Nep-
40
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
tune now. The acceleration was
falling off, not all at once, of course,
but rapidly. The grayness swept
away and breathing became easier.
The free fall was upon them.
He said, "I should have enjoyed
that four gravities while it lasted.
It’s the last gravity I’m going to
feel for a long time.”
The pilot looked at him question-
ingly. "Where are you going, sir?
There’s gravity on Lunar. Not
much, I grant you, but gravity.”
Jeff Stevens had said too much.
"Top secret. Lieutenant. Very hush,
hush.” His tone didn’t invite fur-
ther questioning.
He was sorry he’d made that slip.
It wouldn’t do for the pilot to be
curious. General Smyth had made
it clear that if it became known the
attempt was being made, and it then
failed, instead of prestige there
would be an unfortunate negative
effect. If he failed, the world would
never know of his attempt, he real-
ized, and the realization didn’t im-
prove his bitterness about the whole
project.
As a matter of fact, the Alice
was somewhat more than Jeff
Stevens had expected, but still con-
siderably less than he had hoped
for. The spaceship was more ad-
vanced in several respects than any-
thing else the service had developed
thus far. But it was still pitifully
inadequate for the job at hand.
It was somewhat larger than the
Neptune in which he’d arrived at
the space station, but not outstand-
ingly so. After all, die Alice had
had to lift herself from Earth be-
fore she could reach this space sta-
tion at all, and that had limited her
size and capacity. Only minor alter-
ations had been possible here.
To his surprise, one of die
changes made in her, out here in
space, had been to rip out two of
the fuel tanks. One of the engineers
explained it to him. Actually, less
fuel would be needed for the full
year and a half trip than it had
taken to make the initial flight from
Earth to the station. The idea was
that you pointed yourself in the di-
rection of your goal, blasted for a
few minutes and then "coasted”
the rest of the way.
The space formerly utilized for
fuel was converted to pumpkin
plants and hydroponic tanks, and,
to a small extent, to living quarters.
It was the size of the living quar-
ters that made Stevens inwardly
quail and curse himself for ever
accepting the assignment Hotchkiss
and Smyth had offered.
The compartment was about the
size of a Pullman bedroom, and in
it were crowded a bunk, a chair, a
tiny folding table, cooking and
toilet facilities. All over the walls
were gauges, instruments, radio and
navigational equipment. The only
possible escape would be back into
the narrow aisles between the
growing plants in the hydroponic
tanks.
A year and a half of this!
He inspected the Alice together
with three of the space station’s
OPERATION TRIPLAN
technicians and its commanding offi-
cer and there was largely silence
between them.
He said finally, sourly, "Snug,
isn’t it?”
The colonel had remained quiet
thus far. Now he said softly,
"There’s still time to back out. Ma-
jor. Maybe it’s a little late, but it's
still possible. From what the gen-
eral said, all that would happen is
that they’d have to keep you under
wraps until they released the in-
formation that the trip was being
made. They’d find somebody else.”
He didn’t seem to be very con-
vinced about it himself.
Jeff Stevens said disgustedly,
"No. I'm going. My roof must be
leaking, but I’m going.”
The hydroponic expert had left
them to give the tanks a checking.
He called back from the inner
chamber, "I hope you like corn,
peas and stringbeans. Major, be-
cause your diet is going to consist
of just that almost exclusively for
some time.”
"I’m a meat and potatoes man,”
Stevens growled unhappily.
Why was he doing this? Why?
Hadn't he taken his chance on the
Lunar venture? Why should he risk
his neck again? Before, six men
had started out and he alone had
survived. If anything, the odds
looked worse this time.
He shrugged it off. "All right,”
lie said suddenly. “Let's find out
what’s holding us up.”
The astrogator, an old-timer who
had known him for years, looked
41
up from his perusal of the pocket
sized books of the meager library.
They were made of tissue-thin
paper and were coverless to con-
serve weight. "The way it figures
out, Jeff, you ought to wait another
twenty-four hours at least. Mars is
in pretty good opposition this time
but — ”
Jeff Stevens nodded. "You’re the
boss, Ray. Twenty-four hours it is.
Let’s get back to the space station
and see if you’ve got any liquor
aboard.”
"A very sound plan. Major,” the
colonel told him.
Jeff Stevens had hoped that the
first few months would be the hard-
est and that from then on he'd
settle into a routine undoubtedly
monotonous but at least bearable. It
didn’t particularly work out that
way.
Of course, life did fit into a rou-
tine. There was comparatively little
to do, but he saw it was done. It
would have been too easy for him
to have sunk into complete ennui
had he allowed it.
There were the hydroponic tanks
to keep supplied with water and
chemicals and correctly lighted.
There were the pumpkin plants to
be kept controlled in their most
vital production of oxygen. There
was the distilling purifier,- which
over and over again used the mois-
ture thrown off by his body to con-
dense from the air, to purify, to
distill, to return to the water tanks
to be used again.
There was the preparation of
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
42
meals, and then there was a certain
amount of astrogation.
"Actually,” his astrogation in-
structor had told him, "it really isn't
so far off from the celestial naviga-
tion that they use in ships and air-
craft. The variation was worked out
by a Dr. R. S. Richardson back be-
fore tlie second war.
"Say we take a star, Regulus, for
instance, a nice first magnitude
baby which is situated pretty well in
the Solar System’s plane. You meas-
ure the angle formed by Regulus,
the ship, and the sun. The star, of
course, is motionless as far as we’re
concerned, so the angle gives us
our position. Next you work out a
triangle between the sun, the planet
you’re aiming at, and the ship.
"Okay. Now in the Astrogation
Almanac here, we find the distance
of the planet from the sun for that
particular time — we still have to
use chronometers, even in inter-
planetary navigation — and we have
all the material we need. We know
one side, and we can figure all the
angles. Simple geometry gives you
your distance from your goal. Work
your triangle around the other way
and you can find out how far you’ve
come from Earth, or, for that mat-
ter, how far you are from any body
in the Solar System.”
There were other things that kept
him busy. The books, the cards for
playing solitaire, the music records,
and his own attempts at drawing,
music, writing.
But time was heavy.
He lay on his bunk, buckled him-
self in against the weightlessness,
stared at the overhead, and debated
for a full half hour what he’d think
about. It had got to that, by now.
He’d divided his life, his actual
experiences, his vicarious expe-
riences via books, the theatre, radio,
the conversation of others, into a
finite number of cross indexed sec-
tions, each very clear in his mind.
And now he could spend long mo-
ments of the dullness just thinking
about what to recall, what to choose,
among all the things he’d already
recalled over and over again.
Did he jeel in the mood for bit-
terness?
There was the fact that Hotch-
kiss and Smyth had chosen him,
from the several scores of available
space pilots, when he’d already done
his share and more.
Nostaglia ?
There was his childhood. Mother.
Father, faintly remembered. School
years’ friends.
Romantic memories ?
There was Alice, for whom he’d
named the ship. There was always
Alice, the unattainable Alice. It was
possible to think of the others who
had been before her. The casual af-
fairs. The more important ones. A
girl here, a girl there. This one who
had been more than averagely at-
tractive. That one who had been
particularly frank in bed. But it al-
ways came back to Alice.
He wrenched his mind from that
trend of thought and decided to go
back over his scene with General
Smyth, after Harold Hotchkiss had
OPERATION TRIPLAN
left them alone — so long ago, it
seemed, there in the office in the
Pentagon.
General Smyth had cleared his
throat and come to his feet. "As
Mr. Hotchkiss pointed out. Major,
the problem is to get there first.”
Jeff Stevens had stared at him.
He hadn’t conditioned himself to
the idea as yet. "You mean you ex-
pect us to reach Mars or Venus with
no more than our present equip-
ment?” he demanded. "Without
atomic fuel for power?”
"Not us,” the general said, with-
out looking at him. "Just you.
You're going to have to do it alone.
Major. No room for a larger crew."
He went to a chart on a wall, a
blown-up diagram of the Solar Sys-
tem and indicated it with a thumb.
"This is going to be a bluff, you
might say. Remember during the
war when Jimmy Doolittle bombed
Tokyo? That was a bluff with more
value as propaganda both at home
and abroad than of damage to the
enemy. It was a quick attack that
couldn’t be followed up and every
plane that participated was de-
stroyed either by the Japs or in
landing in China.
"Frankly, Major, wc can’t go
either to Mars or Venus, land, and
then return to Earth. Atomic pro-
pulsion would be needed for that
and all wc have is chemical fuel.
But wc can go to both Venus and
Mars, circle them and then return,
with our present equipment.”
Jeff Stevens protested "I’m con-
fused. What — ”
43
The general said, “You see, Ma-
jor, the trip to Mars would take
about two hundred and fifty-eight
days. But by the time you arrived it
would not just be a matter of turn-
ing about and returning. Eartli
travels faster in its orbit about the
sun than does Mars. And by the
time you were ready to return, Eartli
would be on the opposite side of
Sol. The spaceship would just have
to wait at Mars until the Earth was
in opposition again. The wait would
last four hundred and fifty-five days.
Then the return trip would take
another two hundred and fifty-six
days.”
Jeff Stevens said, "About two
years and eight months for the
whole trip.” He shook his head.
"Alone for almost three years. It
doesn’t make any difference how
much w r e need prestige, General. It
couldn’t be done. One man couldn’t
take it.”
The general ignored him and
went on. "A round trip to Venus
would be somewhat less. The trip
out would take one hundred and
forty-six days, then you'd have a
wait of four hundred and seventy
days, and then there’d be the one
hundred and forty-six days to get
back. Altogether, two years and a
month.”
Jeff Stevens said slowly but em-
phatically, "Either trip is impos-
sible. If nothing else, two years is
too long a period for a man to re-
main in the cramped quarters; not
to mention food and oxygen re-
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
44
cjuircments. But to attempt to go to
both Mars and Venus — ”
The general smiled sourly. “A
combination of the two would take
a considerably shorter time, to ac-
complish than either one alone. Ma-
jor.
“You see, we’d use the Walter
Hohmann Round Trip for Opera-
tion Triplan. The ship would first
proceed to Mars, but it wouldn’t
land, nor would it remain in orbit
around Mars for the four hundred
and fifty-five days. Instead, it would
circle Mars for a few weeks and
then head out for Venus. Venus
would be circled for a few weeks
and by then Earth would be in po-
sition for a return. The whole
project would take about a year and
a half. Dr. Hohmann worked it all
out in his Die Erreichbarkeit cler
HimmeUkorper long before space
travel was an actuality."
It began to sound more possible
at that. Mars travels slower than
Earth, Venus travels faster. Since
Mars is nearer the sun ami Venus
further away than our planet. The
ship would take advantage of that
situation.
Jeff Stevens said, “Wait a min-
ute, now. As I get it, the govern-
ment wants me to take a ship pow-
ered by present fuels and take off
for a tri-planetary exploration in
which I'd circle both Mars and
Venus but land on neither.”
“That’s right,” the general con-
firmed. "It would be impossible to
land and then take off again. You
wouldn't have the fuel for it.”
Stevens snorted. "I won’t have
fuel for this deal either, as far as
f cm see. It's all we can do to get
a ship to the moon with our present
fuels.”
General Smyth said ' briskly,
“We’ve figured it all out, Stevens.
The craft you use will be taken
up to our space station and there
refueled. In that manner we’ll
escape the necessity of burning pre-
cious fuel in take-off from Earth,
which, of course, would ordinarily
be the main expenditure. You’ll also
have a step rocket for your initial
velocity. There will be ample fuel.
None extra, but ample.”
It was still fantastic. “But the
food, the water, the air?”
The general smiled. “There will
be pumpkin plants to produce oxy-
gen, there will be hydroponic tanks
to augment your dehydrated foods.
You’ll be self-sufficient for the pe-
riod you're gone.”
He had sat silently then for a
long time before asking the next
question. By this time he knew it
was no mistake, no joke. The West-
ern Alliance was desperate, and he
was expendable.
Mars grew slowly in the sky be-
fore him, and that, at least, was
something. Each time he arose from
his bunk, after sleep, he was able
to go to the small but powerful
telescope and decide that for him-
self.
“She does seem to be nearer.”
He’d got to that point now. He
talked to himself. And answered.
OPERATION TRIPLAN
And the time came when he
made his observations as usual and
murmured with some surprise, "I
thought Mars had only two moons.”
Not that he needed to, the in-
formation was branded on his mind
along with everything else known
about the red planet. But he went
to his condensed encyclopedia and
looked it up.
"Only two,” he grunted in con-
firmation, "both of them tiny.
Phobos, nearly six thousand miles
off Mars, and Deimos, about four-
teen thousand five hundred miles
off.
“And they’re tiny enough,” he
added. "Phobos is only about ten
miles in diameter, the other one’s
about half of that.”
He went back to the telescope.
’’This one is smaller still. Maybe
that’s why they haven’t picked it
up before.”
Jeff Stevens kept his eye glued
to the glass for what must have
been hours. Finally he put it down
and laughed without humor. "Har-
old Hotchkiss,” he said, "and you,
General Smyth. I’ve got bad news
for you. The Eastern Confederation
ship is already here and already in
orbit around Mars.”
The significance of it suddenly
dawned upon him. They hadn’t de-
veloped an atomic fuel as had been
thought. All they had was chemical
fuel. They, too, were using the
Hohmann Round Trip for an
Operation Triplan of their own.
"They must’ve started earlier
than I did,” he muttered and took
45
up the telescope again. The craft
seemed larger than his own.
At least there was time and time
aplenty to think everything out. He
went back to the bunk and
sprawled there, but instead of con-
structive thought, waves of bitter-
ness flooded over him. All this. All
this he had been through. All he
had been subjected to by Hotchkiss
and Smyth and their bid for pres-
tige. And what was the result of
his sacrifices, the endangering of his
life a thousand times over? This . . .
He finally shook it off savagely
and brought himself before his
radio. He picked up the speaker
and flicked switches.
They had anticipated this, those
in the other ship. A voice imme-
diately came on, a voice heavy with
a middle European accent.
Calling Western Alliance space-
ship. New Petrograd, calling West-
ern Alliance spaceship. Come in.
Jeff Stevens answered carefully.
Alice calling New Pet rag rad. Come
in, New Petrograd.
He flicked over and his speaker
blared. What has taken you so long,
Alice ? According to our agents you
left weeks before us but we have
been here already for many days.
Over.
Even over the reaches of space,
the taunt was there in the voice.
His lips felt tight. He took the
mike and said, Greetings from the
crew of the Alice, New Petrograd.
Your agents must be mistaken. Our
agents tell us you started consid-
erably sooner. Over.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
46
Security! He snorted disgustedly.
The Easterners weren’t bluffing.
They’d known of his attempt and
had hurried up their own expedi-
tion. Damn Hotchkiss and Smyth
for bunglers!
The speaker blared. You attempt
to fool us, Alice. We know you
started first. Undoubtedly you still
use the inferior fuels hydrogen and
ozone. Over.
A cold finger worked its way up
his spine. He kept his voice even,
flicked the set over and said. Don't
tell us you have developed atomic
power. If so, you wouldn’t have to
remain in orbit around Mars. You
would have enough power to land
and take off again and you would
have sufficient acceleration to arrive
here and return during one opposi-
tion. Over.
Never had time dragged so slow-
ly as this over the past months.
Finally came the answer, the other
voice jovial now. We did not claim
to have atomic power, Alice, but
■we have progressed beyond hydro-
gen and ozone. We hat e developed
monatomic hydrogen and, we assure
you, the advantage is impressive.
Call us again in twenty-four hours,
Alice. We are both far from home.
The voice added, maliciously. In a
way, of course, you are even further
from home than we since we will
be back months the sooner.
Jeff Stevens slumped into his
chair and stared at the set. His hand
went out to the encyclopedia. He
read aloud, ’'Monatomic hydrogen
in which each atom is independent
instead of being tied to another
hydrogen atom to form a molecule.
It gives a theoretical exhaust ve-
locity of twenty-one thousand me-
ters a second. Ordinary hydrogen
has a theoretical exhaust velocity
of five thousand, one hundred and
seventy meters per second.”
He put the book carefully in its
place.
"They’re right,” he told himself
aloud. "They’ll get home sooner.
They’ll have to wait around Mars
the same as I will until Venus is in
the right spot, and then, after they
get to Venus they’ll have to wait
there until Earth is in line again,
but it’s on the home stretch they’ll
shoot ahead. They might make it
two months before 'I do.”
But was there no solution?
Was there any way of bringing
them down?
No. There were no spacecraft,
as far as he knew, fitted for inter-
spacial warfare. But evea if there
were, the Alice certainly wasn’t de-
signed to destroy another space ves-
sel.
There was no solution, and he
knew it. And he knew that if the
New Pe/rograd returned before
him, the fact that the Alice had
also made the trip would be almost
meaningless.
He sat there, unthinking, staring
unseeingly, for what might have
been hours. Finally, and almost in-
advertently, his hand went out to
open a compartment door. He
brought forth the package the
messenger had delivered to him
OPERATION TRIPLAN
from Hotchkiss — to be opened and
used in case of extreme emer-
gency . . .
He unwrapped it. A bottle of
stone age cognac. With it was an-
other note.
/ am sorry, son. It is not easy
for a sick old man to send a young
man to his death. Not even for a
great cause. Let me say that I am
very humble, and grateful in the
name of our people who must never
know that Operation Triplan was
attempted, now that it has failed.
Your death is for us all, but only
a few can know of it .. . Harold
Hotchkiss.
Jeff Stevens grunted. The old
boy had guessed that an extreme
emergency on Operation Triplan
would mean curtains. Well . . .
Both ships were in orbit now
and only a few score miles apart.
They swung silently around Mars,
the red planet, waiting for the time
when Venus would come nearest
them and they could blast off in
her direction. And once every
twenty-four hours they exchanged
radio messages.
Jeff Stevens managed to keep it
on a friendly basis, in spite of their
thinly-veiled taunts, their boasting,
their heavy sneering attempts at hu-
mor at the expense of the Alice
and of the Western Alliance.
There were four of them in the
crew of the New Pel ro grad and
Jeff Stevens kept up the pretense
that there were even more than that
number in the Alice. He didn't ex-
actly know why, but the first ink-
47
lings of a plan were forming in his
mind.
As the weeks passed he sipped
Harold Hotchkiss' cognac very care-
fully and with appreciation and he
thought it out very carefully.
And while he waited he checked,
to the extent possible with the in-
struments aboard, the surface con-
ditions of the planet beneath him.
The data accumulated by Earth's
astronomers over the years was sur-
prisingly accurate. Mass, density,
volume, diameter, orbital velocity,
period of rotation. The atmosphere
was thin, certainly too thin to sup-
port human life, but there was
moisture and a certain amount of
vegetation. He couldn't tell from
this distance whether or not there
was animal life.
"A helluva spot for either us or
the Eastern Confederation,” he
snorted aloud. "You'd think both
sides were nuts for even trying to
reach the place.”
Slowly, the time for departure
for Venus approached. Within an
hour of the time his own calcula-
tions called for leaving on the next
leg of the operation, he detected
the New Petrograd's jets.
He flicked on his set and the
other craft answered almost imme-
diately. You of the West are tardy,
the voice said, its mockery ill-con-
cealed. Our calculations show it is
time to leave for Venus. We will
see you there later, Alice. Over.
Jeff Stevens took up the mike and
threw the switch over. Good luck,
New Pc-trograd. Our calculations
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
48
are — different. He flicked the switch
off.
He stood there a full minute
looking at the set. "Yeah,” he said
aloud. "Good luck, Niw Petrograd.
You’re going to need it when you
get back.”
Talking easily to himself, he sat
down at the tiny desk to compose
the message he intended to send to
Earth. "Let's see. We’ll continue in
this orbit for a few more weeks.
Long enough so that it would be
impossible for them to watch us in
their telescopes. Then . . ."
He wet the end of the pencil
and composed the note carefully.
Security, of course, was out now.
The fat, so to speak, was in the fire.
Soon, all Earth would be in the
know.
He read the message aloud:
Have landed mars and taken
POSSESSION IN NAME OF WESTERN
ALLIANCE STOP AWAIT REINFORCE-
MENTS STOP SIGNED STEVENS OFFI-
CER COMMANDING FORT MARS
UNITED STATES SPACE SERVICE.
He considered it and nodded his
approval. "Of course, I don't have
the fuel to take off again, once I
land, but 1 should be able to live in
Alice for a long time, maybe even
— not very likely, of course — until
they, somehow, send a ship that can
land and take off again.”
He reached out for a glass and
the bottle of cognac and poured
himself a sparing half ounce.
"Yes, sir,” lie said. "In a few
months the New Petrograd will be
making its return to Earth from
Venus, planning on startling the
world with the fact that it made a
trip around Mars and Venus. And
just about when they’re ready to
land, I’ll send this message."
He sipped his brandy and read
the message again.
"Wonderful brandy,” he said ap-
preciatively. "Hotchkiss is a man
of rare understanding. Well, he
wanted to have prestige to maintain
peace and the balance of power on
Earth. So he’ll have his prestige.
Perhaps its first colonist will never
see his home planet again, but Jeff
Stevens, old friend, the Western
Alliance will shortly have the first
colony of Earth on another world.'*
fresh
pastures
by .. . Garnett Radcliffe
The Famine was far more terrible
than the World Wars which had
preceded it. But one woman on
Barth had the bravest of husbands.
Jt was a converted farmhouse
built before 1950 and its only mod-
ernized feature was a raised plat-
form built above the sloping roof
for the benefit of the tradesmen's
hover-vans. Inside, one room had
been re-wired for dimensional view-
ing. Apart from those changes the
house was much as it had been in
the middle of the twentieth century.
The day commenced for Hetty
Marcham, the owner of the house,
with a minor annoyance. She was a
young widow and the mother of
three children. A little more than a
month previously she had lost her
husband.
The minor annoyance concerned
die milk-van. The pilot told her she
would be getting a half-pint less in
the future. He was sorry, but it
wasn’t his fault.
"It's this World Famine," he ex-
plained. "How can cows give milk
when they’re not getting proper
food?”
"But according to the Food Dis-
tribution Regulations I’m entitled to
three pints a day !’’ Hetty protested.
"Well, I’m afraid the cows can’t
have read the Regulations. But I’m
sorry. I am really ... I mean, you
This is a very quiet story. Two isolated women Using for the moment in
the aftermath of a world tragedy explore relationships tragically inter-
twined with a grief , and pain and fear which has become almost unendurable
And out of the quietness emerges drama — and a quality of suspense so stirring
to the mind and heart that Carnett Radcliffe' s gift to us trill be treasured
FANTASTIC UN1VERSR
50
with three young children and los-
ing the Commander so recently . . .
He was a fine man . . . Didn't he
build the platform with his own
hands?”
"Yes,” Hetty said proudly. "He
could do anything.”
"He made a good job of the plat-
form. Well, I must be flapping
along. I’ll have a word with the boss
to see if he can't let you have an-
other half-pint.”
"Thank you,” Hetty said.
After the milk- van had gone
growling on its way she remained on
the platform, her eyes following a
distant bird. When she'd decided it
really was a bird, she sighed in re-
lief and descended the steps leading
to the interior of the house.
Her aunt had got the children up
and was giving them their break-
fast. She was a tiny short-sighted
woman, as brisk as a bee at seventy.
She too had known sorrow in her
youth. Her fiance, a fighter-pilot in
the Last War, had been another
who had not returned.
"Good morning, Hetty,” she said.
"There’s mutiny on the lower-deck
this morning. Douglas won’t eat his
, bean-toast.”
"Then he should be put in irons,”
Hetty said. "Why won’t you eat
your nice bean-toast, Douglas?”
"Wan’ bread,” said Douglas. He
was four years old and had his
father’s curly hair and obstinate blue
eyes.
"You can’t have bread,” Valerie,
who was ten and serious, told him.
"Bread's rationed because of the
famine.”
Douglas’s retort was to fling a
piece of bean-toast at his sister.
Hetty thought He wouldn't have
done that if Eric had been here, and
restored peace by the rather coward-
ly subterfuge of giving her son a
piece of her own bread ration.
When the children had departed
in the school hover-bus she looked
at her mail, which was considerable.
Letters of condolence from people
she had never heard of were still
arriving. There was a thick, regis-
tered letter from Eric’s solicitor
which she knew would contain
forms to be filled out in connection
with her pension.
A bishop had written making sug-
gestions for a memorial service. The
Famine Relief Committee had grate-
fully accepted her offer of Eric’s
clothes. A plane would be calling to
collect them that morning.
"I’ll see to that,” her aunt assured
her. "What you need is fresh air
and exercise. Take a walk to the vil-
k g e.”
Hetty shook her head. "I prom-
ised Professor Clayton to let him
have Eric’s diaries as soon as pos-
sible. I’d better start sorting them
out.”
Her aunt frowned, and shook her
head in disapproval. "Your health
is more important than the diaries.
But suit yourself.”
The diaries were in Eric’s study
just as he had left them. He had
dated and arranged them with great
precision, almost as if he had known
FRESH PASTURES
lie would not come back. In addi-
tion to the diaries there were several
graphs, pages of incomprehensible
mathematical formulae, and photo-
graphs of men wearing what looked
like divers’ suits.
A shadow that momentarily dim-
med the room drew her to the win-
dow. It was only the Famine Relief
plane come for Eric’s clothes.
She heard Aunt Hetty’s voice and
sounds of movement in the bedroom
above. She listened as if it was
Eric’s body they were taking away.
Presently the plane took off. Her
aunt appeared in the study, looking
very determinedly cheerful and mat-
ter-of-fact.
"Well, that's done,” she said.
"She was very grateful, especially
for the leather shoes. They use
those, you know, for making meat
substitutes.”
"So we’ve to eat Eric’s old
shoes !” Hetty said. "And this is the
vaunted twenty-first century!”
"It's better than the last one,”
her aunt said. "At least we’ve no
wars.”
"W'ars could be ended, but what’s
going to be the end of the famine?
The scientists give us eight more
years at the very most. Douglas will
be twelve then.”
"The scientists aren’t always
right,” her aunt said. "Anyway, I’m
going to take a taxi to Paris now, to
see if I can buy a rabbit. Oh, by the
way, what became of that photo-
graph of you that used to be on the
mantelpiece in Eric’s dressing-room ?
I noticed just now it isn’t there."
5i
"He took it with him,” Hetty
said hoarsely. "He said I was going
to be the first woman — ”
She broke down. Wise from ex-
perience, her aunt patted her shoul-
der, said, "I must be off now, dear,”
and left the room.
Once alone Hetty quickly recov-
ered. She busied herself making the
diaries into neat parcels by years.
Before she did up the most recent
one, she looked at the last entry her
husband had made.
"As far as is humanly possible the
chances against us have been re-
duced to a minimum. The rest is in
the hands of God,” he had written.
The rest is in the hands of God !
She looked out the window and saw
a speck moving above the clouds.
Knowing she was being ridiculous
she opened the window and leaned
out so that she could watch it as
long as possible.
This sky-gazing' as her aunt
termed it, was becoming a bad habit,
like a drug that brought relief at
first and then an eternity of pain.
Resolutely, she turned away and
tried to decide what she should do
next.
There was a lecture on cooking
she could view in the D.V. room.
But she was sick of tire grim famine
discussions that had come to domi-
nate people's lives. Despite what
her aunt had said she still believed
that even wars must have been
preferable. Wars blazed and died.
The famine was a black cloud, slow-
ly, irresistibly creeping over the
world.
52
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
An album of photographs caught
her eye. She opened it at random
and saw Eric’s father in old-fash-
ioned uniform, with a peaked cap
that almost hid his eyes. He’d been
only a little older than Eric was now
when he had been killed in the
Last War.
She turned the page and saw a
photograph of a girl wearing trous-
ers and smoking a cigarette. Eric’s
grandmother at the age of eighteen !
A twentieth century Miss who had
lived before cosmic energy had been
discovered, but who had had pretty
nylon and cotton to wear, and real
soap to wash with!
"People were happier then,”
Hetty decided. "Men killed each
other in wars, but the world itself
hadn’t begun to die.”
She thought of her children and
their future. Her unhappiness and
nagging anxiety sent her to the
viewing-room where she could tune
in on the special beam reserved for
parents to the school dining-room.
The midday meal was in progress
and she could see her busily occu-
pied progeny.
She thought Valerie, the eldest,
looked sad, as if she missed her
father. Elspeth, who was seven and
■very pretty, was chatting gaily; and
Douglas, who sat amongst the in-
fants, was sucking a spoon upside-
down and glaring at the teacher.
Hetty had a certain distaste for
spying on her children. She was
grateful when the beam enlarged
the day’s menu which was chalked
on a blackboard. Fishcakes, rice-
pudding and stewed apples was
what they were having. As was only
right the children got priority for
food.
She had started her own lunch of
bean-toast and watercress sand-
wiches, when her aunt returned
from Paris, hot and tired, but
triumphant because she had secured
a rabbit. Hetty inspected the emaci-
ated little creature.
"How much were yo\i obliged to
give for that?" she asked.
"Fourteen thousand francs and a
packet of tea. Do you think I was
cheated?”
"No, I don’t. You’re a better
shopper than I am.”
"That’s because I’ve had more
experience. Anyway, you’re a better
shopper than Eric was. Do you re-
member the day he — ?’*
They talked lovingly about Eric
for the remainder of the meal, and
Hetty, with great self-control, re-
strained herself from looking at the
sky. As a treat because she had been
to Paris and bought a rabbit, she
made her aunt a cup of bean-coffee
with sugar. Then they switched on
the news and were cheered to hear
that thanks to cosmic stimulation of
the soil the Canadian potato crop
promised to be a record one.
"The scientists will beat the fam-
ine yet,” her aunt said quietly.
In the afternoon Hetty went out
to mow the lawn that had only been
preserved as a lawn because the soil
was too weak to grow anything ex-
cept grass from cosmic-fertilized
seed. It wasn’t entirely waste, how-
FRESH PASTURES
ever, since the clippings could be
used for silage.
There was a radar-controlled
atomic mower that would have done
the job in half-an-hour. For the
sake of exercise, however, and be-
cause Eric had once said it gave a
closer cut, she used the little anti-
quated hand machine she had to
push herself. The whirr of the
blades was soothing and she loved
the scent of the new-cut grass. She
recalled with a pang that Eric had
mowed the lawn by hand on the
day before he went away, possibly
to divert his thoughts.
She began to play a game. In
her imagination she was Lawn-
Mower Hetty. Lawn-Mower Hetty
who mustn't stop because so much
depended upon her. The whirring
blades were motors, and the grass
they flung up a shower of green
meteors through which no living
thing could pass. Once a bee took
off with a furious buzzing directly
before the wheels and floated
through the meteors apparently un-
scathed.
"It's going very fast and there’s
plenty of room if there’s nothing
else!” she could imagine Eric say-
ing.
The lawn was on a slope. Up the
slope Lawn-Mower Hetty had to
labor in a succession of short, fierce
bursts, her feet boosting the ascent
like rockets. When she turned and
began to descend the pull of the
rose tree at the bottom caught her
and she hurtled downwards at
twenty-five thousand miles an hour.
53
Faster and ever faster until she saw
the gravel path ahead and then her
heels became great parachutes to
break the shock. Around and then
up again toward a goal she could
never reach because the meteors
were a shower of death, dividing
her from victory.
The return of the children
brought her back to earth. When
they had been fed and Douglas,
who was in one of his worst moods,
had been forcibly put to bed, she
returned to the mower.
But somehow the zest had gone
out of the game. Even as a cutter
of grass she knew herself to be a
failure. She had let Eric down. He
had expected so much of her and
she had failed.
The evening was drawing in and
something she dared not look at
had appeared in the sky. It was a
new moon shaped like the hooked
finger of a witch beckoning men to
an icy death in a dark void. They
floated in the void like drowning
kittens in a pail of water. They
clawed each other and suffocated
slowly, or they were engulfed in
one flash of fire while the moon
soared inviolate and serene above
their puny struggles.
Tired and with blistered hands
she took the mower back to its shed.
When she returned into the house
it seemed very silent. All the chil-
dren were in bed now and her aunt
was watching a play. She went into
Eric’s study, picked up a book at
random and tried to compose her-
self to read.
54
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
It was an old book concerned
with the wars of the last century.
It seemed meaningless to Hetty.
The people it described had lived
in a different age ■and had faced
different problems. World Famine
had not yet crept upon them. Only
a handful of the wisest scientists
had even glimpsed the grisly
shadow of the wolf stalking man-
kind.
She was living when the wolf
had begun taking its toll. It was
three years now since the World
Famine had started, and the wolf's
shadow had encircled the globe and
all nations were huddled together,
their animosities forgotten, like ani-
mals trapped by a raging forest fire.
"We'll have to break out," the
scientists said. But the question
was, bow?
Suddenly Hetty, who had been
half dozing, realized that her aunt
had come into the room. The older
woman was very pale, and when
she spoke her voice sounded
strange.
"Hetty, are you asleep? They’ve
switched off the television. The an-
nouncer said they were going over
to Universal News and asked every-
one to stand by for an important
announcement."
Hetty felt her hands go wet and
her heart start pounding. No, she
wouldn’t allow herself to hope. She
forced herself to smile. "He’s go-
ing to tell us that the Assam rice-
crop has failed and we must all
tighten our belts a little more."
"We ought to listen anyway."
"All right.”
She switched on her wrist-radio.
They sat in silence while the tiny
dial glowed green. There were
crackling noises and then, suddenly,
a voice announced: "This is Uni-
versal News. For the next four
hours this, and all other stations
will bring you on the spot coverage
of an event which may well be cru-
cial to the future of mankind.
Spaceship Hetty, commanded by
Commander Eric Marcham, thirty-
five days overdue and officially
given up as lost, has landed on
Space Station R. I. 7, after a suc-
cessful trip to Mars. There were
no casualties. The crew are all well
and in high spirits.”
"He's done it!” Hetty cried.
She began to weep and fumble
for her handkerchief. The night was
full of cheering. It was as if some-
thing that had been pent-up for
centuries had suddenly been re-
leased and was pouring in a shin-
ing, golden torrent around the
globe. But all she was really aware
of was that Eric had come back
safe and sound, and that upstairs
Douglas had woken up and was
bellowing like a young bull eager
to give battle to the Universe.
the
advantages
are
tremendous
by . . . Curtis W. Casewit
It was a chemical plan for mass
destruction, almost as dreadful as
die Hydrogen Bomb. But its wily
inventor had an ace up his sleeve.
Contrary to the rule, Profes-
sor Theodor Lindemann had not
been brought behind the Iron Cur-
tain at gunpoint.
He went to what he called the
Barbaren at his own accord and his
chemical weapon went with him,
simply because die barbarians had
offered him a large sum of money
for it. But after three months of
his scientific surrender die Professor
was sick and tired of his hosts and
desperately anxious to get back to
Leonora, his wife, and to the land
of his birth. He therefore began to
ask for his return documents, soft-
ly, earnestly, as a great pharmacolo-
gist well might, his tallness, enor-
mous forehead and academic looks
adding a certain persuasiveness to
his appeal.
To his astonishment, there came
an afternoon when Captain Puitov,
Sergei Puitov, of Chemical War-
fare, announced that the Professor’s
return had been foreseen, and that
the papers were already signed and
sealed, in the Captain’s own tunic,
under the Captain's resplendent
medals. To prove his point, Cap-
tain Puitov even unbuttoned a
If you were so unfortunate as to have missed Curtis IV. Casewit' s recent
brilliant lead novelette tn ARGOSY or his original teleplay "Tiger," this
briefer yarn — bis newest — will enable you to discover at first hand
fust hoiv terrifyingly timely a Caseu/it story can be. He pulls no punches,
as you'll see, and doesn’t pause for breath, until he scores a dramatic
triumph heavily underscored with seething, tumultuous currents of dread.
55
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
56
pocket and his tiny pink hands
emerged with an envelope.
''Your papers? Right in here,”
Puitov said as if. someone were
pinching his nostrils. "Right in this
envelope. But after the experiment,
understand ?’*
Then he turned his wide hips and
narrow shoulders toward the Top
Ten. These, Professor Lindemann
knew, had come to witness the ex-
periment on a live rhesus monkey.
He also knew that none of the Bar-
bar en had the faintest notion of
chemical warfare or medicine,
though they’d somehow been put
in charge of the Department.
It was a travesty.
One of them was a Marshal, a
man in a medal-bedecked uniform
with a coarse face, who presently
grinned so that the General, the
Colonel and all others, down to the
automatic-toting sergeant grinned
also.
"Before I give you the papers,”
said Captain Puitov, "you will tell
us about your gas."
”]a, Captain Puitov.”
"Wen?"
"The advantages of Tabun
gas—”
"Nyel, nyet ! No. It’s Tabunsky
now — ”
"The advantages of Tabunsky
are — ”
"Are tremendous!” Captain Pui-
tov pushed himself in front of the
scientist and addressed the Top Ten
who were gathered in the front
room of a farm house — a large,
ugly room with suUied walls, a
rusty stove and an empty coal
bucket.
"Distinguished officers, tovarishe,
comrades,” Captain Puitov de-
claimed in his nasal voice. ”1 per-
sonally will describe Limpclmann’s
gas!”
Puitov waited until the Marshal,
the Colonel, and the comrades had
laughed about the "Limpelmann,”
and then went on pompously:
"Number one — the tactical view-
point. What does Tabunsnky do? It
surprises! Now why should it sur-
prise? Ah, Tabunsnky is colorless,
odorless, non-corrosive. Number
two — the medical viewpoint. Ad-
vantages again! Tabunsky has no
latent period. You’ll sec that for
yourselves this afternoon when I
perform my experiment on the mon-
key. You’ll observe the gas in ac-
tion.”
Captain Puitov’s rimless glasses
glittered and his tiny chin went up
and down. "Please imagine, for a
moment! As little as three drops
into the pores of an Imperialist's
skin — and what do wc have?
Agony! Unendurable agony. And
death — quick death! Gas masks?
Completely senseless. Antidotes?
There are none. Injections of atro-
pine or adrenaline,' perhaps? Fu-
tile, ridiculously futile! Like a
toothpowder against leukemia!"
As the Captain strutted through
the room, Professor Lindemann
could hear the envelope and his
papers rustling. He was astonished
that his superior had kept his prom-
ise. After the experiment he would
THE ADVANTAGES ARE TREMENDOUS
be free to take a train out of the
Curtain right into the arras of his
wife who would cry, with a little
gasp: " mein Snesser! My sweet
one!” The thought made Professor
Lindemann stare through the win-
dows.
It was nasty weather outside, and
the trees and hills were heavy with
snow. But what if Puitov didn't
provide the papers? The Professor
discarded the idea, but it forced
itself back into his mind. If Puitov
should make difficulties, it would
be too bad for Puitov.
Everything the Captain knew
about Tabunsky, he knew first
hand, of course. But there was one
important tiling the pompous little
man did not even suspect. If Puitov
stayed in character, that one small,
missing piece of information might
well break the Captain’s pink neck.
For the time being, Puitov stayed
in character. He elaborated on bis
experiments on albino rabbits and
dwelt on his ideas on how to dis-
perse the gas by means of
aerosol clouds from innocent-look-
ing planes, ostensibly sent out on
a benevolent mission to kill insects.
With an odious little smile, he
added that the Imperialists were
indeed no better than common lice,
or beetles.
He went on to explain how he,
Puitov, had scattered the labs over
a wide area — Pathology II, North,
Gas Physics, Colloid Chemistry,
South, and Neurology, 1 km West —
and how adroitly he had directed
57
research in Organic and Inorganic
Chemistry. He, the great Puitov in
person.
He ended by stressing the fact
that lie had found that one hundred
percent secrecy was absolutely essen-
tial for this afternoon’s project. He
even boasted about the loneliness
of the house, a loneliness which had
been achieved by simply sending its
previous inhabitants on a North-
eastern trip, by which, of course,
he meant Siberia.
"And now, comrades, I will show
you the laboratory," he announced.
“It is behind this wall. You, too,
Limpelmann! Come vith me!”
The Professor followed his su-
perior into the kitchen. Advanc-
ing to a table near the door, Cap-
tain Puitov removed a circular
mirror from above a smaller wooden
square. Directly beneath the square,
there was a reversible switch, and
as his comrades watched he quickly
proceeded to turn the device, first
to the left, then to the right.
Back in the main room, a motor
hummed. There was a sudden click,
a faint rattle, and as Puitov blared:
''Comrades, watch the wall in front
of you !” a massive section of tiling
roiled smoothly upwards. A slot
formed under the ceiling, and into
it the wall vanished and also a part
of the roof. The Professor knew
the mystery.
Captain Puitov’s eyes glowed
with pride. "A complicated proc-
ess,” he exclaimed. "Especially to
fasten the wall onto a metal sheet.
But I overcame all the technical
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
58
difficulties, and here is the labora-
tory in front of you!”
The Top Ten entered, their
medals clinking against their
chests.
"It is well concealed,” Captain
Puitov continued. "It is hidden like
our thermo-nuclear labs behind the
Urals, completely unsuspected by
our enemies.” He pointed to a
table which was covered by a maze
of instruments and test tubes.
"Here I performed my final experi-
ments,” he boasted. But Linde-
mann knew that the equipment was
new, freshly out of packing cases,
and that the Professor had remem-
bered to place it on the table solely
to impress his official visitors.
"And here is the glass cage.”
Puitov strutted toward a huge con-
traption which looked like a coffin
for a giant, and stroked its surface
with his tiny hand. “Now I beg
you to understand, comrades, that
this is a most unusual kind of glass.
It can neither be broken or melted
by extremes of heat. It is even one
hundred percent bullet proof. You
see the small cot? The animal will
lie on that — or to be more precise
— on this rubber mat, with its wrists
tightly chained to these hooks. Its
feet will be cuffed down also, but
not its entire body. Why, you may
ask. Why shouldn’t the entire mon-
key be chained down? Ah, he must
have mobility, to survive the terrible
convulsions !”
Puitov wrinkled his nose, so that
the spectacles moved up and down.
"These convulsions are unique, and
therefore worth studying. Have you
ever seen an epileptic? That is how
the monkey will toss and twist him-
self about and tremble.”
The Captain stared at his au-
dience, eager for approval.
The Marshal nodded, and the
others followed suit.
"Now here against the wall are
the centrifugal pumps, and over
there, the labyrinth of pipes. Here
on the ground, you can observe the
tanks. Both hold five liters of the
liquid. Five liters is all we've fab-
ricated so far. Still, it is enough to
kill one division of our despicable
enemy. Tabnnsky streams swiftly
through the network of pipes and
gathers within another tank which
you cannot see because it is hidden
in the wall . . . Limpelmann!”
"fa, Herr Captain.”
There was a gentle murmur of
amusement, which pleased Puitov.
"Everything in the laboratory,”
he said, "works by push-button!
And I will let Limpelmann activate
the buttons !”
The murmur turned into an out-
burst of hilarity. The Barbaren
stood in one block, the Marshal
and the General with their peasant
faces well out in front, and the
others on tiptoe behind.
"Now here is the panel which I
designed,” Puitov went on quickly.
"These buttons correspond to the
various phases of my experiment.
Most important is the dispersion
unit. Its purpose? The distribution
of the liquid. Limpelmann! Acti-
vate button A!”
THE ADVANTAGES ARE TREMENDOUS
The Professor’s slender fingers
moved.
A metal tube darted out of the
wall like a suddenly aroused snake,
and entered the glass cage through
a narrow aperture. Unfolding over
the cot the flexible metal piping
seemed like a large shower nozzle.
The Chemical Warfare Council
pressed closer.
"Down these steps we will take
the monkey. He has not been drug-
ged, so that we can do the experi-
ment full justice. You see the steps,
tovarishe? And the small corridor,
along which the animal will walk?
Good. Now if you will come a little
closer, you can observe the trap
door, through which he gets into
the cage. Ingenious, is it not?”
He turned toward the Professor.
"Button B!”
The trap door grated upwards.
"Leave it open," warned Puitov.
"Another minute and we will have
the monkey. Meanwhile, a ques-
tion, comrades Should we not be
proud of all this? Docs not my
work please you?"
Go right ahead, thought the Pro-
fessor bitterly. Call it your work.
Forget that you begged me for the
idea. Forget how humble you were
when you pleaded with me for in-
formation, so that you could con-
duct the experiment before the
Barbaren and boast of your clever-
ness. You may boast now. You may
think you know as much as 1 do
about the outcome. But you don’t.
That is where you’re mistaken. 1
still have one superiority over you.
59
The doer opened and two guards
entered with the monkey. It was a
small male rhesus with a pink pos-
terior, a short tail and a ludicrously
deadpan face. One guard had the
animal on a chain and pulled him
forward by the neck while the other
nudged him from behind, using the
barrel of his tommy-gun.
Captain Puitov followed them
pridcfully into the cage. The mon-
key kept attempting to bite but his
struggles were of no avail and he
was speedily fastened to the cot.
The Professor watched his limited
acrobatics with ill-concealed impa-
tience until the guards went out.
The small group was completely
alone now. Even the driver that had
brought the Marshal was in the city
awaiting orders.
The Professor was taken to a
blackboard and Puitov said: "Very
well, Limpelmann! Write down
your equations — "
The Professor put down the Ta-
bunsky formula. He wrote slowly,
conscientiously, thinking: Let this
Dumtnkopf show off to his heart’s
content. Let him brag, and use chi-
canery now. He will soon have a
rude awakening.
When the Professor had finished,
Puitov cried in feigned outrage:
"Illegible! Give me the chalk. I
will write the equations, person-
ally.”
Captain Puitov elevated himself
on his toes, erased the formula from
the board, and re-wrote the same
figures. Then he addressed the Top
Ten, his small eyes sparkling be-
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
6o
hind thick glasses. "Can you read it
now ?'*
After they had all nodded, he
turned toward the tall Professor.
'‘I've studied your 'notes. They’re
safe in our archives. You will now
repeat them to — ”
"fa, Captain Puitov.”
"For your toxicity figures. Which
formula?” demanded Puitov.
“The Haber formula/'
"Give it!"
"C x t equal to ct.”
"Which means?"
"C is the concentration expressed
in milligrams per m 3 or mm 3 — "
"Nyet, nyet!” Captain Puitov
shook his head. "Not m 3 ,’’ he cor-
rected. "But cubic meters! And cu-
bic millimeters."
Professor Lindcmann smiled,
without contradicting his superior
who had simply repeated the same
formula, thus revealing the fart that
he knew that m 3 meant cubic me-
ters.
"Limpclmann is too slow for us,"
he said, scornfully. "I will continue,
personally. That is the time of ex-
posure in minutes, ct the lethal dose
resulting.” Captain Puitov now re-
cited a dozen figures, molecular
weight of Tabunsky, boiling point,
volatility.
"And another thing!” He turned
abruptly. "Do you hear this scream-
ing and retching from the cage?
Does it disturb you, comrades?” He
strutted toward the panel, followed
by the Professor. ’’Well, here is
our silencer button. How does it
work? How did we get a sudden
absolute silence after Limpelmann
pressed it for us? Asbestos layers,
of course, lining the bottom of the
cage. But it also cuts off the ani-
mal’s air.
"So — wc will start now! / will
press the buttons. Dispersion first.
You’ve seen how it telescoped out
of the wall ? It docs so again. Watch
closely. It fans out. As for the gas,
three drops are enough. I men-
tioned that before."
The Captain waved a pink hand
at his colleagues, then concentrated
on his instruments. "However, wc
will give him twenty drops. And /
personally will now turn the wheel.
Watch the flowmeters. There, slow-
ly. Twenty drops are gone.”
At the same time the Professor
heard a humming of pumps, and
the clucking noise of the gas stream-
ing through the pipes. Then the
drops gathered under the dispersion
unit. For a moment they hung sus-
pended, collecting in glittering
beads. Then they came down, reach-
ed the monkey’s face, and ran over
his body.
Puitov was pressed against the
glass cage. "The light you just saw,
comes out of the dispersion unit. It
goes on automatically when the
liquid is released. Come closer,
comrades. Study the clinical drama
which commences. I will explain
the medical symptoms.”
That is fine, thought the Profes-
sor. Explain the medical symptoms.
I taught them to you. Except one.
Puitov paused until the bemed-
aled ten stared into the cage.
THE ADVANTAGES ARE TREMENDOUS
6l
"There now," he began in his
nasal voice. "The animal opens his
eyes. The cornea is sensitive to the
light — a very interesting symptom.
He cannot focus his eyes. He al-
ready has a peculiar pain behind
the eyeballs. In a moment, we shall
sec pinpoint pupils, then inhibition
of his optical nerves. The conse-
quence? Total blindness.
"Ah, a pressure in his neck now.
Observe the discharge from the
nose, the trace of saliva on the lips.
Observe it, comrades. Another few
seconds and salivation will be quite
profuse. The blood-pressure will
sink to shock levels in a moment.
Tabu ns ky, as you know, overstimu-
lates the parasympathetic nerve end-
ings, which, in turn, control the
respiration. Notice his first breath-
ing difficulties. The broncho-spasms
are setting in. The monkey is now
— if you will permit. my inadequate
comparison — like a fish cut of
water. He cannot inhale, though he
tries frantically. Exhalation? That,
too, is impossible."
The Captain’s pink face was
glued to the glass. He spoke with-
out turning so that he would miss
nothing. "All, at this stage, he be-
comes confused. His facial muscles
are working as if he were about to
go completely mad. He has swal-
lowed the contaminated saliva. Do
you not see? His bowels have lost
control. At the same time, there is
an almost unbearable distention of
his urethra. The bladder, natural-
ly— "
He turned to stare at his au-
dience. They were watching the
cage in tight-lipped horror. Satis-
fied, Captain Puitov went on: "No-
tice the discoloration of his lips.
It is the direct result of his pulmon-
ary difficulties. The nails will turn
blue later. See there!" Puitov went
on, his body with its large hips,
and small shoulders, pressed against
the rounded cage like the body of
a woman.
"There! The climax! And so
quickly! Here come the convulsions
I spoke of. The animal literally
writhes, twists itself into knots.
Amazing, is it not? What causes
the convulsions? A violent contrac-
tion of the muscle fibers. See his
sweat glands laboring? He must
have lost a minimum of one liter.
We'll check on that in a moment.
Here’s the last symptom. It’s
unique. Watch!"
The Captain turned, his pink
face gleaming with perspiration, his
tunic soaked. "Sec it?" he cried,
"his hair— .-erected ! It virtually
stands up!"
The Professor stood back against
the panel, quietly watching the
dead monkey. Outside, snow whip-
ped against the house. In the room,
they gloated.
Captain Puitov approached him.
"A masterpiece!” he exclaimed.
"A work of genius!" He looked to-
ward the others. They were in a
paroxysm of joy, sharing Pnitov’s
perversity.
When they all nodded, Professor
Linacmann said simply, and with
a modesty that came easy to him. "I
6 2
FANTASTIC UNIVBRSE
am glad. Captain Puitov. And I
shall welcome my return papers
now — ”
"Your papers? Papers? But
Limpelmann, a man of your cali-
ber — how could I possibly release
you today.’*
"You promised. Captain.**
"Of course! Your papers are
right here.’* Puitov pulled out the
envelope as he spoke, nodding.
"See? I have them. But certainly
not today. A few more weeks with
us and then — ’’
"fa, Captain Puitov.” Professor
Lindemann bowed, realizing that he
had no alternative but to use his
plan. "I admired your knowledge,”
he went on with modesty again.
"And I will let you therefore per-
form the autopsy.”
The Captain could have asked
for nothing more to his liking. But-
ton E was pressed for decontamina-
tion, and a device quickly dried the
Tabunsky inside the cage, sending
a bubbling shower of chlorinated
lime over floor and monkey. The
Professor then brought the bag with
his instruments from the corner —
rubber-gloves, stethoscopes, and a
half-dozen small, sharp knives. The
trap door came open and Captain
Puitov stayed in character.
"Marshal, General, TovarisheP'
he announced. "I personally will
handle the post-mortem examina-
tion. Please watch!”
They all went inside the cage.
Lindemann could have pressed Pui-
tov’s ridiculous buttons, but that
would have been far too dangerous.
He still had an hour to get to the
train and his plan required only a
few minutes. He therefore stationed
himself cautiously near the trap
door, and while the Top Ten leaned
over the monkey’s cadaver to watch
Captain Puitov's prowess with the
scalpel and thumb-forceps. Profes-
sor Lindemann listened to Puitov's
explanations.
Puitov had meanwhile taken
knives and rib-cutters out of the
Professor’s bag. After a while, his
nasal voice stopped. There were
fewer and fewer words. Then none
at all.
The Professor stepped quickly
forward, and took an alkali-soaked
rag from his bag. The rag protected
his nose and mouth as he went to-
ward Puitov. He experienced no
difficulty in extracting the papers
out of his superior's tunic. Then
he left the cage, alone. By the time
he pressed button B that brought
the trap door down, the convulsions
had started inside the cage.
The Professor smiled. He had
counted on Puitov’s desire to per-
form the autopsy. Naturally, Puitov
did not know that one had to wait
considerable time until such an
operation could be risked. The
pompous Puitov was a chemist —
and a bad one at that. He did not
know that the monkey’s tempera-
ture evaporated the gas, so that it
became a highly noxious vapor
when it left the lungs of the ani-
mal.
Professor Theodor Lindemann
went to the panel, pressed the but-
THE ADVANTAGES ARE TREMENDOUS
tons until Tabunsky flowed into the
dispersion unit, and then dripped,
and splashed, a> shower of a thou-
sand drops, ten thousand, one hun-
dred and seventy-live thousand.
Presently one tank was empty.
Grimly, working against time, he
emptied the other tank, pressed the
button for silence, and the switch
that brought the wall down.
Then, the Professor went to the
back of the house, and managed to
break into the archives, which he
destroyed. Everything worked to his
satisfaction. He got around the
sentry — there was only one — and
to the road, walking first swiftly up
a hill, and then down.
It was a pity, he thought an hour
and twenty minutes later, that he
had never been paid for his services.
But he could relax now, for he was
sitting in a train that was carrying
him to safety.
He fingered the documents and
started to think of Leonora, his wife
who would be waiting for him at
the border. He dreamed of her un-
til the train stopped, and the sol-
63
diers came to check his papers.
Calmly, the envelope came out of
his pocket. He watched the soldiers
as they exchanged glances, then
stared at him.
Finally they said, "Nyet, nyet.”
No, he couldn’t get through.
He reached for the papers, all
red stars, and black signatures, and
read:
"in view of your scientific supe-
riority, we have decided upon a
transfer for you. Upon receipt of
this order, you will report to a spe-
cial laboratory in Moscow where,
apart from teaching at our Academy
of Sciences, you will perform a
Tabunsky experiment on one hun-
dred humans — ”
Professor Lindemann shut his
eyes.
Just then he heard Leonora his
wife outside the train. As he had
expected, she was crying: "Theo,
Theo! Mein Suesser, my sweet
one!” It was his turn to gasp, not
hers, because the soldiers pushed
him out of the compartment and
dragged him away toward Moscow.
a
new
world
by . . . Richard R. Smith
The Abstractions could dissolve
steel and concrete with the power
of thought alone. But human minds
have a stubborn survival capacity.
The featureless steel door
whispered tonclcssly in his mind.
Director, Concentration Depart-
ment.
The door opened and he stepped
inside. He had expected a recep-
tionist’s office or at least a waiting
room. Instead, he found himself
standing in an amazingly spacious
central office luxuriously furnished
with teakwood chairs, oriental rugs,
multidimensional paintings and
floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
The famous Alice Barlow smiled
at him from behind a small, ebony-
black desk. She rose and seemed
almost to glide across the floor to-
ward him, her slender young body
moving with incredible grace.
"Welcome to the Department,
Mr. Jones,” she said.
"Thank you,” he replied.
She extended her hand and he
shook it, briefly amazed at the
warmth and softness of it. He won-
dered if she was an exceptional
woman, or if he had been in Con-
centration School so long he’d for-
gotten what women were really
like.
"Nervous on your first day of
If you've unwisely allowed yourself to believe that intelligence and
biological life are inextricably linked in Space and ‘ Time a surprise
awaits you here. For Richard R. Smith is prepared to convince you that
an abstract design — a drawing, a painting or even a complex mathematical
figure — can have a terrifying life of its own. AH he asks is a reason-
able suspension of disbelief, and an attentive ear as his daring soars.
64
A NEW WORLD
work here?” Miss Barlow inquired.
"Slightly."
She was neither beautiful or
plain, he decided as he glanced at
her face. Her nose was a trifle too
large, and her lips just a little too
full, marring the perfection of an
otherwise beautiful face.
Miss Barlow studied his_ face in-
tently as she spoke. "There isn’t
much to explain, Mr. Jones,’’ she
said. "You know what your duties
will be. All you have to do is sit
and concentrate. Your examinations
indicate that you have quite excep-
tional gifts in that respect. I think
you’ll go far in the Department.”
She paused, then smiled as she
added, "Of course, there is one im-
portant thing I should remind you
of. Don’t talk to the Abstractions!
Be very careful about that.”
They both laughed at the witti-
cism.
"Good luck,” she said.
They shook hands once more.
The formality of the brief inter-
view completed, he left immediate-
ly for his Station.
A half hour later another feature-
less steel door in another building
closed soundlessly behind him, and
he was alone with his thoughts. He
glanced at the empty room, his eyes
passing slowly over the slanting
concrete walls, and domed ceiling.
Pride came upon him as he looked
at the single large chair in the metal
dais. Aly job, he thought.
He sat in the comfortable chair
and the dais began to turn slowly.
As the chair revolved, he stared
65
at the floor and thought — Concrete
. . . concrete . . .
While he concentrated, a far
corner of his mind wandered. He
found himself speculating as to
what his precise position in life
would have been if his ancestors
had conquered space or Henderson
had failed to find a way to enter
another dimension decades ago.
Where would he be now if the
teeming billions of Earth hadn't
populated the new dimension?
Abruptly, he discarded the ques-
tions as unanswerable and foolish.
Concrete . . . concrete ... His
teeth clenched slightly as he brought
all of his thoughts to bear on the
floor’s rough surface.
"Hello!”
The voice roared in his mind and
shook him physically. Never before
had he met anyone with such a vio-
lent telepathic contact faculty. Pure-
ly from automatic reflexes, he
glanced about the empty room as
if expecting to see the intruder.
"Go away. I'm working. I have
to concentrate!” Concrete . . . con-
crete . . . His invisible, powerfully
directed thoughts flowed toward the
floor.
"What are you doing?” the
stranger inquired.
"I’m concentrating on the floor.
Will you please break contact. In-
terruptions can be dangerous.”
"Precisely why are you thinking
about the floor?” the mental voice
asked.
It must be a child, Jones decided.
Or an idiot totally unfamiliar with
66
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
the proprieties. He ignored the
question.
"Will you please explain?" the
voice persisted.
Sweat trickled down his face.
Nervously, he pushed a button on
the chair arm, and lifted a glass of
water from the depositor. He drank
quickly, his uneasiness sharply in-
creasing. What a ghastly thing to
happen on my first day! he thought
wildly.
For two hours, he ignored the
telepathic voice. For two hours, it
repeated monotonously, "Will you
please explain?" At the end of that
nerve-wracking period, it had asked
the same question at least five hun-
dred times.
Well, why not? It shouldn’t take
long to explain, and he could think
of no other way of silencing the
voice.
"I’m concentrating on the floor
to keep it there,” he said.
"To keep it there?'’
"Yes, If I don’t think about it,
it will dissolve.”
"But why?” the voice demanded.
Jones' lips tightened impatiently.
"Don't you understand? The Ab-
stractions will dissolve it with their
thoughts.”
"Why should they do that?”
"Because they don’t want ns in
their dimension.”
"Why?”
He realized suddenly that he
could hardly hope to explain with-
out going back and telling the
entire story from its beginning to
the present moment.
He altered his mind in such a
way that a certain portion of it
automatically and unconsciously
concentrated on the concrete floor.
Then, with the remaining conscious
portion, he explained to the inquir-
ing stranger with telepathic illus-
trations.
He painted a grim and starkly
tragic mental picture of an over-
populated Earth, with its billions
of people crowded together and
growing constantly more crowded
with every passing day. He dwelt
on the invisible, fatal radiomag-
netic rays in outer space that would
have made space-flight and colo-
nization of other planets suicidal.
A man named Henderson had
discovered a way to enter another
dimension ... the solution to the
population-space problem. Millions
had entered the alien dimension.
The extra-dimension was empty and
they had been compelled to con-
struct a steel and concrete founda-
tion to build their homes upon.
The native inhabitants of the
dimension were not physical — no
one could sec or hear them. They
talked to men's minds and drove
them insane. Somehow, they dis-
solved sections of mankind's con-
crete and steel foundation in the
new dimension and men were
trapped and probably killed inside
the disappearing structures. At any
rate, they were never heard from
again.
"Do you understand?” he asked,
when he had withdrawn the last
mental projection. "A group of us
A NEW WORLD
are distributed over the Founda-
tion. So long as we concentrate on
the Foundation, it cannot be dis-
solved by the Abstractions and the
people living in the Dimension will
be safe.”
"What are Abstractions?”
“The natives of this dimension!”
Jones exclaimed impatiently.
The invisible entity was silent.
Jones regained conscious con-
trol of the portion of his mind that
had automatically concentrated on
die floor, stared at the concrete and
thought distinctly — Concrete.
Anxiously, he glanced at the In-
dicator on one arm of the chair. No,
the needle had not wavered.
"Who are you?*' he asked the
now silent stranger.
"An Abstraction.”
Hours later, a fellow worker
arrived to relieve him, and without
a word ascended the dais and took
his place in the slowly revolving
chair.
Jones left the Station and wan-
dered aimlessly down the street.
Thinking about concrete for hours
at a time was unnerving and now
that his mind was free of the task,
he felt as if a great weight had been
lifted from him.
He glanced at the low, scattered
buildings and wondered how many
people lived in just that one square
mile Area. Two thousand? It was
a frightening responsibility. His
thoughts protected the very material
they walked on from the horrifying
creatures of an alien dimension.
67
Sometimes he wondered how a
Concentrator’s thoughts could pro-
tect the Foundation. Did they act
as an impenetrable shield ? Or mere-
ly as a tenuous mental safeguard,
warning away intruders? He didn’t
know. Even in Concentration
School, the instructors hadn't In-
formed them exactly bow the pro-
tection worked. They had stated
only that thought-concentration did
work.
He glanced up uneasily at the
artificial sky thousands of feet above
him. Did the Concentration Depart-
ment have men up there too, to
prevent the Abstractions from dis-
solving the Ceiling barrier? Or
could the aliens only attack from
beneath the Foundation?
A husky uniformed man blocked
his path. "I guess I'd better have a
look at your identification papers,”
he said.
Jones handed the policeman his
wallet, and for the first time heard
the dull hum of machinery that had
passed unnoticed before. He looked
beyond the policeman’s shoulder
and saw — the Edge.
Fascinated, he stared at the huge
energy converters. The Dimension
was filled with raw energy and con-
verters worked continuously at the
Foundation's Edge, changing energy
into oxygen, concrete, steel and
other substances. He knew of the
machines but had never seen them
before.
The policeman returned the wal-
let "Your papers are in order. But
68
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
don't you know you’re not allowed
this close to the Edge?”
"I'm sorry, officer. I was preoc-
cupied and didn’t notice where I — ’*
He faltered abruptly, realizing that
he had committed his second law-
violation of the day. He had not
only conversed with an Abstraction,
he had committed the almost equally
serious offence of going too close to
the Edge. Was he a subconsciously-
motivated criminal?
“You were day-dreaming, eh?”
The policeman laughed. “What do
you think that red line is for?”
He pointed a stubby finger. Jones
glanced behind him, and saw the
bright red line several blocks away.
It gleamed in the sunlight.
“To warn people not to — ”
The policeman waved his hand.
"‘Okay. Notice it next time.”
Jones turned and almost ran away
from the Edge.
After the fourth drink, his
nerves quieted and he could think
rationally. It had been a rough day
— his first experience with a respon-
sible job and an unlawful conversa-
tion with an Abstraction. He shud-
dered inwardly when he realized
what would happen to him if any-
one discovered he had talked with
an Abstraction.
He sipped his drink and stared
through the tavern’s glass wall at
fche artificial sunset, rejoicing at the
sight of widely dispersed buildings,
green lawns and wide streets. It
gave him a lift to see so much space
where people were not crowded.
He remembered his childhood on
Earth, with its crowded apartments,
schools and playgrounds. He re-
membered especially the swimming
pools where there had been no room
to swim — only barely enough space
in which to stand erect and allow
one's self to be pushed, first one
way and then another, by a horde of
half-naked bodies. Hundreds of
people had eaten in the "Dining
Rooms” and the noise had been al-
most unbearable even to those who
had known no other way of life. He
recalled the lack of privacy, the end-
less, millions of inquisitive eyes in
strange, hostile faces that had seem-
ed to be everywhere.
But here, in the Dimension, there
was unlimited space. The Dimen-
sion had no boundaries. It stretched
into infinity in every direction and
mankind's protective shell of steel
and concrete could expand indefi-
nitely.
There was no limiting factor.
He wondered what the Abstrac-
tion he had talked to looked like.
But that was an absurd thought.
Abbies didn’t look like anything.
They weren't physical. They were
totally alien.
He swung the bar stool around
and glanced at the customers in the
dimly lit booths, searching for a
familiar face. He wanted to talk to
someone, anyone.
He straightened in sudden relief
as he noticed a familiar face.
A few seconds later, Alice Bar-
low glanced up at the man who
stood beside her table.
A NEW
"Do you mind if I sit with you?”
he asked.
"Please do, Mr. Jones.”
He ordered drinks and embold-
ened by the warmth and confidence-
inspiring afterglow of his four pre-
vious drinks said, "Call me Har-
vey.”
She smiled graciously. "All right.
And you may call me Alice.”
The elimination of formal names
pleased him. But he realized that
tomorrow, when he was sober, he
would regret this familiarity with
his superior.
While he sipped his drink and
studied her, he considered dispas-
sionately the insurmountable differ-
ence in social standing between
them. In her office, she had worn an
ordinary women’s business suit and
had been without makeup. Now she
wore a filmy blue dress that accen-
tuated her slender grace and with
only a small amount of makeup her
face seemed strangely like that of a
beautiful angel with moist red lips.
He kept looking at her.
"This is only your third day in
the Dimension, isn’t it?” she in-
quired.
"Yes.”
"How do you like it?”
"I like it very much. It’s a lot less
crowded than Earth.” He laughed
nervously as if he had violated an
unspoken rule by mentioning the
deplorable population problem on
Earth. "So far, I don’t know many
people here. In fact, I’m totally un-
familiar with die local customs.
But, I’ll make friends as the weeks
WORLD 69
go by and sooner or later, I won't
feel like a stranger at all.”
"I’m sure you won’t”
They talked several minutes about
trivialities and at the right time,
when it fitted neatly into the conver-
sation, he inquired, "What are the
Abbies like, Alice?”
She grimaced. "Like nothing on
Earth. They're completely alien —
not physical at all.”
"Are they mental entities?”
"Not exactly. They’re composed
of an alien energy. Maybe that’s the
best way to think of them.”
"Why is everyone forbidden to
converse with them? Are they that
dangerous?”
She paused, her cool grey eyes
searching his face. "No, they’re not
exactly dangerous anymore. We
have a perfect defense — the Con-
centration Department. So long as
the CD f unctions, they can’t damage
our Foundation. The only danger is
that Abstractions might contact in-
dividuals and convert them.”
"Convert them?” His jaw sagged
at die word. "Convert them to
what?”
Alice drained her glass and sig-
naled for another. “Their own way
of life. You see, it’s happened be-
fore. Abbies have telepathed to hu-
mans and converted them to the
Abstraction life-form.”
Jones could almost feel his mind
grapple with the concept.
"But why would any man in his
right mind allow himself to be coor
verted into an . . . Abstraction?”
"It would mean a new and differ-
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
70
cnt life,” she informed him. "A re-
lease from all psychological and
physical problems. Some people
■would jump at a chance to have the
excitement of an ‘entirely alien way
of life. Occasionally, someone is
converted. Almost always, we locate
the person before the change is
completed and ...”
She did not finish the sentence,
but moved her hands expressively.
The gesture seemed to imply the
words eliminate them. "When peo-
ple are converted, there isn’t much
loss. The Abbies only contact the
weakest minds.”
He decided he would have to stop
asking questions before she became
suspicious. Perhaps one more:
"What happens to a human when
he's converted to the Abstraction
life-form?”
His companion smiled queerly.
'The Abbies convert his entire body
into their form of energy and trans-
mit him to their — ” she hesitated,
then said quickly — "dimension.”
Concrete . . . concrete . . .
It was hard to concentrate on his
job. His mind kept wandering to
the Abstraction he had met ihe pre-
vious day.
''Hello.” There! Somehow, he
had known the Abbie would com-
municate with him again.
"Hello,” Jones replied, noticing
that the alien’s mental voice was
now more attuned to his own telep-
athy plane.
He waited for the alien to ply
him with questions as it had done
the previous day and grew irritated
when it remained silent.
"If you’re an Abstraction,” he
asked, "why did you ask all those
questions yesterday? Didn't you
know?”
"All of my race does not know
about humans. As for myself, I had
just returned from a distant part of
our dimension where there is no
knowledge of your people.”
"What’s your name?” Jones ask-
ed.
“You would not understand it. It
cannot be translated into your lan-
guage.”
"Hmmm. I'll call you AB. AB
for Abstraction. Is that all right?”
He detected laughter in the
alien's mental reply, "AB is satis-
factory.”
“What does your dimension look
like?'' Jones asked the alien.
"Do you want to see it?”
He glanced apprehensively at the
dial on the chair arm. The instru-
ment was designed to indicate the
composition of the Foundation's
mass. If he neglected his duty and
Abbies attacked the concrete, dis-
solving it with their thoughts, the
dial's needle would move. A similar
needle in CD Headquarters would
move too — and he would lose his
job.
"I'd like to but I can’t leave my
job. I have to stay here and concen-
trate on every — ”
"Do not worry,” the Abstraction
interrupted. "I will concentrate for
you while you are away.”
A NEW WORLD
Abruptly, Jones was in the alien
dimension.
When a child, he had looked up
at the stars and sensed the vastness
of the universe. It had not prepared
him for this. With his mind, he saw
that the alien dimension stretched
into eternity in every direction. And
yet it wasn’t space that reached to-
wards infinity. It was the strange
substance of an even stranger di-
mension. There were no solid ob-
jects. Energy flowed and swirled
across the vastness with the frantic
movement of an endless angry sea
and struck islands of static energy
with the gentleness of a soft breeze.
The land was filled with things
that grew. Energy fed their roots
and throbbed through multitudi-
nous branches of warped space. The
fruit of the growing things was
composed of vibrations more har-
monic than man’s most beautiful
music and colors more exciting than
the most imaginative kaleidoscopes.
It was an alien terrain without
definite sizes. Things were not large
or small. Their size depended on the
viewing entity’s perspective. Weird
mountain-like formations and lux-
uriant growths blended with an in-
credible smoothness.
Living things danced, cavorted
and ran across the cosmic land, their
movement more exotic and complex
than any dance he had ever seen,
their voices more harmonic than
great orchestras, their bodies more
intricate than that of a thousand
divergently-evolved Earth creatures.
He lost all sense of time. Some-
7 *
how, it seemed as if centuries had
passed before the alien inquired,
"Would you Like to become one of
us?"
"Yes'”
The alien extended a slender ten-
tacle of radiant force to a myriad
brilliant energy-growths that seem-
ed miles in the distance. Then it
quickly withdrew the extension and
held a glittering, pulsating object
before Jones.
“Here is the Seed," the alien in-
formed him. "I will implant it in
your mind. You must remain in
your dimension until the Seed takes
root. In twelve hours, the Seed will
convert you."
The operation was swift, painless.
Jones awoke in the chair in his
Station. He whirled to face the
mass-indicator dial. No. It hadn’t
moved.
When his relief came, he went
directly to a bar, selected a darkened
booth and ordered a double rye col-
lins. His hand trembled when he
lifted the glass to his lips.
As he drank, he occasionally
glanced at his watch. In twelve
hours, the Abstraction had inform-
ed him. He had regained conscious-
ness in the Station at one o’clock. It
was now six-fifteen. Five hours and
fifteen minutes of the required pe-
riod had passed. The change would
be completed at one o’clock in the
morning. At one o’clock in the
morning, he would be an Abstrac-
tion !
Already, he could sense the in-
visible, intangible Seed in his mind.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
72
As it grew, soft, tingling tendrib
reached out along the neural pat-
terns of his brain and his mind was
changing. Changing into what? Al-
though he had seen the alien form
of life, had admired it and wanted
to join them, he did not know what
to expect.
A man and woman walked by his
table, sat in a booth across the nar-
row aisle.
He paid no attention to their con-
versation until he overheard the
words "Abbie lover.”
Then, he ignored the other multi-
tude sounds of the room and heard
the bald-headed man say, ”1 don’t
know why anyone would want to be
an Abbie. I think it’s revolting!”
The blonde-haired woman leaned
forward confidingly. "You know
that Helene Summers? She said — "
A sudden flurry of noise from an-
other section of the room drowned
the sentence.
Jones sipped his drink and tried
to keep his eyes from wandering in
their direction while he listened in-
tently.
From the corner of an eye, he saw
the bald-headed man pause to gulp
a glass of beer. “Bill told me,” he
informed his woman companion.
"He said they knew there was an
Abbie lover around here some-
where. He said they have machines
that detect them and track them
down. I pity that guy when they
catch him!”
*\He deserves it,” the woman
stated bitterly. "Anyone who would
want to join a pack of aliens who
killed thousands of us when we first
came here deserves what he’ll get.
And what’s the matter with Abbie
lovers anyway? Isn’t the human race
— their own race — good enough for
them ?”
Jones shivered as if the room had
suddenly become cold. He had
known of the general hatred for
anyone who associated with Abstrac-
tions. It was natural. People feared
and therefore hated unknown quan-
tities. He hadn’t known the police
or CD could detect an "Abbie
lover" with machines.
Had he made a mistake? When
he saw the Abstractions’ wonderful
dimension, their magnificent form
of life, he had been unable to re-
fuse the alien’s offer. Would you
like to become one of us?
He had been overcome with the
kaleidoscopic beauty, the harmonic
vibrations, the wondrous sights and
had answered purely from an emo-
tional viewpoint, Yes.
But now, in the cold world of
reality where facts were as hard and
definite as the table before him, he
knew it had been a wrong decision.
A wrong decision because Alice had
hinted that almost all Abstraction
converts were located and killed be-
fore the change took place. She had
only hinted but it had been as obvi-
ous as if she had shouted, "We kill
all Abbie converts P
He finished his drink and wan-
dered about the streets for hours.
Several times he tried to contact the
Abstractions telepathically but was
unable to do so.
A MEW WORLD
He was alone. Deserted by the
aliens who had invited him to join
them. Deserted? How could he be
sure of that? The universe didn't re-
volve around him. For all he knew,
the Abstractions might be perform-
ing necessary duties that required all
their attention. They might be
equivalently sleeping. And the most
logical possibility of all: now that
they had planted the Seed and it was
only a matter of hours before he
joined them, perhaps they were no
longer interested in him as a hu-
man. Perhaps they had somehow
blocked their minds against his te-
lepathy while they awaited his ar-
rival.
His head spun with the totally
alien concepts until he thought he
would go mad.
The Seed in his mind grew con-
stantly. At first, he had sensed it
only in his brain but now, he felt
alien energy particles move down
his throat toward his chest.
The sight of a squad car filled
with stern-faced policemen remind-
ed him. He should take some sort of
evasive action.* He had broken the
law. They would try to find him. He
saw no need to surrender. His own
opinion was that it hurt no one if a
man or woman decided to become
an Abstraction.
In one of the larger automatic
department stores, he bought a pair
of glasses, false eyebrows, a blond
wig and various other items of dis-
guise.
After disguising himself as effec-
tively as possible, he rented a small
73
apartment near his home with the
theory that the police or CD au-
thorities would take it for granted
that he would leave his immediate
neighborhood.
Alone in the shabby apartment,
he reclined on the bed and waited.
The hours dragged by with torment-
ing slowness. At twelve-thirty, with
only half an hour remaining before
the conversion would be completed,
the door to his room opened.
Alice Barlow walked into the
room and smiled pleasantly as if she
was performing a social visit.
"So you found the Abbie lover?”
Jones said.
Her grey eyes studied the sweat-
ing man on the rumpled bed, a
strange expression on her face.
“Yes, we found the Abbie lover.”
"How?”
She shrugged her shoulders neg-
ligently. "Machines. Does it really
matter ?”
"No.” He closed his eyes. The
Seed had taken root in every cell of
his body and his flesh tingled warm-
ly as strange, invisible roots altered
his flesh in some incomprehensible
way.
He wanted to rise and make one
last struggle for his life but realized
the Seed had weakened his muscles
grievously.
"Are you going to execute me
yourself?" he asked, wondering if
the elimination had to remain so
vitally cloaked in secrecy that only
the top member of die CD could
perform the duty.
"Before I answer that question,”
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
74
she replied, ’'let me explain some-
thing. First, the general public has
several misconceptions. The greatest
of these is that die Abstractions are
constantly attacking our Foundation
in their Dimension and that the CD
is necessary to defend the Founda-
tion. Both conceptions are carefully
told lies.”
"The Abstractions aren’t attack-
ing our Foundation?” Jones repeat-
ed incredulously. “They aren’t our
enemies?”
"No. Years ago, we communi-
cated with them and they agreed not
to attack our Foundation. Now, the
human race and the Abstractions are
on very friendly terms.”
Unable to believe his ears, Jones
stared at the woman and wondered
if he had gone mad. "Then why
does the CD — ?”
"Why does the CD still function
as if the Abbies were our enemies?
Why does the CD allow hundreds
of men to sit in little Stations and
concentrate uselessly on a mass of
concrete? To answer those ques-
tions, another misconception has to
be- eliminated. Remember, I told
you yesterday that the Abbies only
contacted the weakest minds of our
race?”
. "You mean — ?” He hesitated
when he happened to glance at his
limp right arm and noticed the hand
was transparent. Through the trans-
lucent flesh, he saw the outline of
bones and veins as if someone had
focused an X-ray machine on his
body.
"That was another lie the general
public believes. The Abbies do not
contact only the weakest minds.
They contact only the strongest
minds. Only the strongest human
mentalities are able to communicate
with them at all. And we want
members of our race to communi-
cate with Abstractions. That is why
the CD sends men and women to
the Stations where they have abso-
lute solitude and can concentrate
freely.”
"You want people to communi-
cate with the Abbies?” he repeated
unbelievingly. As he watched her,
something happened to his eyes.
The room seemed to darken and her
body became only a shadowy blur
against the darker inkiness.
"Exactly. The Abstractions’ di-
mension is like a new world. We
want to send human explorers into
the new land. Some who have first-
hand knowledge of the existing sit-
uation claim the alien existence is a
better way of life than ours. Others
say it is only different and complete-
ly alien. We want to send men into
this different life-form and evaluate
it.”
"But why is all this kept secret?”
Jones queried. "Why not tell every-
one the truth?” He could not see
her now as he spoke for his voice
had become a faraway hollow sound
in the impenetrable darkness.
She laughed at the question.
"Everyone? All the billions on
Earth? If we told the truth, hun-
dreds of thousands of men and
women would want to enter the Ab-
stractions’ dimension. The result
A MEW WORLD
would be a mass stampede, a chaos.
No. We are careful to send only the
best of our race into their dimen-
sion. For the time being, at least.”
Her words carried assurance.
He did not hear the last of the
explanation. The Seed had sent
75
swirling tendrils into every cell of
his body. The cells had altered and
formed something that did not exist
in a physical world but only in an
alien dimension.
When Alice Barlow glanced at
the bed again, it was empty.
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now is the time — if tables of contents multiple-starred with the names
of such greats as Irving E. Cox, fr., John Wyndham, foe Archibald, Watt
Sheldon, Algis Budrys, Walter Al. Miller, Jr., Evelyn E. Smith, Dal Slivens,
give you an anticipatory thrill — to subscribe to
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scription to FANTASTIC UNIVKK8M.
N a in e
City. Zone. 9tnte_
rLBAHIC mi NT
FUM
the
husband
by . . . Evelyn E. Smith
Ellen’s husband was so quiet and
self-effacing she could almost
picture him apologizing for the
inscription on his own tombstone.
W HEN Ellen had been twenty,
even twenty- five, she would never
have considered John as a matri-
monial prospect. He would have
been too dull, too stuffy, and — for
ten years was a great span of time
then — too old. Now that she was
thirty-three, forty-three didn’t seem
old at all, and John was, as far as
she could determine, dependable
and steady.
So she agreed to marry him.
With a romantic impetuousness that
she had not thought him capable of,
he had insisted upon an elopement
• — not that there was anyone to care
whether or not they lived in "sin.'’
They were married one fall eve-
ning in a small town where mar-
riages could be arranged hastily,
and ever since then — six months it
had been — they had been living in
John’s little Greenwich Village
apartment.
Once she had wondered whether
she ever could grow fond of him.
Now, looking at him as he sat read-
ing near the fire, his bald spot shin-
ing, his rimless spectacles flickering
with reflected flame, she wondered
how she could ever do without him.
It is commonly assumed that an alert and discerning editor will snap up a
manuscript prom a very talented writer the instant it is presented. Unhap-
pily the assumption is unwarranted, for few indeed are the writers who can
he depended upon to maintain a uniform level of excellence with every story
submitted. But we’re becoming convinced that Evelyn Smith is one of the rare
and gratifying exceptions, in her chosen realm of science-fantasy resplendent.
76
THE COOD HUSBAND
Affectionately she got up and rear-
ranged the muffler he wore indoors
and out; he was always cold.
John looked up at her and smil-
ed. His teeth were excellent, a fea-
ture she liked to dwell upon, be-
cause otherwise he was such a
commonplace little man.
"You’ve been coming home later
and later every evening,” she re-
marked in a tone which she tried
to keep from being querulous,
rather bright and interested as if
she wanted to know everything he
did. Not that she knew anything —
really. He never told her what his
business was and she was afraid to
press him, afraid of being thought
a nagging wife, afraid of stretch-
ing the tenuous substance of her
dearly-won marriage.
But his coming home later and
lalcr had been hard on her, espe-
cially when he worked Saturdays
and Sundays too. She had come to
rely upon his company so much.
He sighed. "As I told you, dear,
a lot of people are beginning to
take their vacations, so I have to
stay later to do their work.”
She returned to her book, trying
to give the appearance of satisfac-
tion. But she was not satisfied. Poor
John ! Everybody pushed their work
off on him — he was such a meek
little fellow. Yet there was an un-
dercurrent of strength in him too.
She never could get him to answer
her questions. Should she try again?
No. He was such a good hus-
band. He never went out evenings
by himself, although he often went
77
for a walk late at night. Soon after
their marriage, she had been star-
tled to awaken, and find the bed
empty. When he came back, how-
ever, he explained to her that he
was subject to claustrophobia and
sometimes had to get up and go out
for air. Since he always did look
much the better for his outings, she
never complained.
Her friends, when they dropped
in for bridge or a quiet evening,
were almost openly contemptuous
of John. Still, she would far rather
have had him than Madge’s hand-
some Bill, who chased after women,
and had even been known to try
to kiss Ellen herself in the kitchen
. . . or Peter, Lillian’s husband,
who drank.
Moreover, John had his family
tree. "Our branch of the Carruthcrs
family,” he would inform guests in
his dry, precise way, "has been in
New York ever since the British
took it from the Dutch. Some of my
ancestors are buried out there.”
And he would gesture toward
the window that looked out on the
graveyard. Behind the old brown-
stone was a forgotten little old
cemetery. At first Ellen had thought
the outlook macabre, but she soon
grew used to it. Moreover, the
apartment was comfortable and fur-
nished with handsome old pieces
that gave John’s claims for his
family a solid foundation.
Her guests would smile when he
gave his little talks; yet she resented
neither their merriment nor his
pompousness. He made her feel as
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
78
if she belonged not only to him but
to a whole tradition. Wanting to
belong, to be part of something had
been one of the major obsessions in
her life.
And his prosiness was less objec-
tionable than Madge’s detailed nar-
ratives of her bouts with the doctor.
Madge had a tendency to hypo-
chondria. Recently she had added
anemia to her ailments and Lillian,
always the copycat, had likewise
professed a drop in her blood
count.
When John would go out to the
kitchen for more ice, Madge would
ask, slanting her eyes, "But just
what does John do for a living,
Ellen?” and Ellen would have to
admit she had no idea.
Then Lillian would say, giggling
and fingering one of the dog collars
both she and Lillian had begun to
affect, "Maybe he’s a bookie.”
And everyone would laugh, be-
cause the idea of John’s being any-
thing outside the law was so absurd.
But this night, brooding over her
book, Ellen found her curiosity irre-
pressible. During fall and winter
John had been a model husband.
Now that spring was here, he was
coming home later and later. "In
the spring, a young man’s fancy..."
And in the spring all men thought
they were young. Could there be
another woman ?
And, after all, what did John do
during the day that he was so re-
luctant to disclose? Didn’t he know
that she wouldn’t mind even if he
were a — a butcher?
When he got up very early the
next morning, she got up too. She
dressed quickly and quietly behind
the closet door while he was putting
on his rubbers and wrapping his
muffler around his meagre throat
and tucking his umbrella under his
arm.
On rubber-soled feet she crept
downstairs behind him. He didn't
go out into the street at all. He
went into the narrow side alley and,
with a big wrought iron key from
his pocket, opened the gate leading
into the graveyard. There he went
to a gravestone behind the big tree
that concealed most of the cemetery
from the overlooking windows and
disappeared into the grave.
Not a minute too soon either, for
dawn broke immediately afterward.
There, in the watery light, was his
umbrella leaning against the stone.
Evidently he’d forgotten to take it
in with him. She had thought he
was getting a little absent-minded
recently.
The inscription on the tomb said:
"Sacred to the Memory of John
Gaylord Carruthers, 1720-1763.”
He hadn't been lying about his
family.
The thing to do, she knew, was
to dig him up and plunge a stake
through his heart. But she would
find life lonely without John. Any-
how, now she knew he wasn’t car-
rying on with another woman.
As she tenderly carried his um-
brella upstairs, she thought of
Madge’s and Lillian’s anemia —
their dog collars — and laughed.
escape
mechanism
by . . . Arthur Sellings
The little man who wasn’t there
could have taken lessons from
Dr. Jessup’s most amazing patient.
For Saunders was there— and how!
The distinguished Dr. Jessup
riffled impatiently through the case
history, then smacked it back on
his desk with a "Pah!” of annoy-
ance.
Why was that fool Nyren always
sending him cases like this? Did he
think the Jessup Foundation had
nothing better to do? He scanned
the note pinned to the history:
/ think this case has some inter-
esting aspects which might be of
use for your book. By the way,
bow’s it coming ?
The hypocritical impertinence of
it! So that was the idea. That was
why, ever since their first meeting
at the reception for Neurath, the
Viennese analyst, he hadn’t been
able to get the fellow out of his
hair. He was trying to worm his
way on to the acknowledgments
page of the great work, Deeper
Analysis by Jessup. What did he
expect? "I must thank my learned
colleague, Dr. Nyren, for his inval-
uable assistance?” What outrageous
effrontery.
It wasn’t as if the cases he plant-
ed on him were of the slightest
complexity or interest. There had
Here we have the kind of merriment that makes for good fellowship wherever
fantasy lovers congregate, with flagons of nut-brown ale, to hearken to
green-haired maidens thrumming zithers all day long. You won't quickly
forget the tragicomic woes of henpecked little Mr. Saunders nor the strange
and really terrifying avenue of escape through which he passes to crown
Arthur Sellings a royal princeling of science fantasy at its most engaging.
79
So
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
been, for instance, that nympho-
maniacal and very persistent bur-
lesque dancer. He winced at the
memory of the odor of dieap per-
fume which had hung around the
consulting room for days. And that
elderly professor with the persecu-
tion complex who had been con-
vinced that he. Dr. Jessup, was the
head of an investigating committee.
And —
He broke off his train of thought
with a snap. He’d be developing a
persecution complex himself if he
went on in this fashion.
But the case which lay before
him now was the limit. Henry
Saunders, Age 32, Married, No
Children, History : — Why, it was
the simplest and most obvious case
of paranoia. He would have to write
Nyren a short and most unprofes-
sional note.
And to cap it all, the case was
already five minutes late.
A gleam came into his eye. He
would put the delay to profitable
use by composing a devastating
note, which Nyren could not pos-
sibly misunderstand. The words
must be carefully chosen. It must
be brief, meaningful, and — final.
He reached for his pen.
He was beginning to turn over
some appropriate and expressive ad-
jectives in his mind when the desk
intercom buzzed.
"Mr. Saunders, doctor,” came the
crisp voice of Miss Coad, his secre-
tary.
’’Send him in,” said the head of
the Jessup Foundation grimly.
The door opened and Henry
Saunders entered, rather tentatively.
He was large and plump and car-
ried about him an air of cheerfully-
endured discomfort.
"Good morning, sir,” he said in
a voice that seemed to apologize
for his being there at all.
"It is eleven thirty-six, and thirty
seconds,” said Dr. Jessup. "Good
morning. Take a seat. No, not there.
Here, at my desk. Now, let me see.
Your appointment was for eleven-
thirty precisely. In other words, Mr.
Saunders, for six and a half min-
utes the whole intricate mechanism
of the Jessup Foundation has been
waiting upon your arrival — com-
pletely innuobilized. For six and a
half minutes the monster of man’s
mental distress has been grinding
on like a Moloch of destruction,
while the Jessup Foundation has
had to stand by, helpless to check
its ravaging.”
"My wife, sir," said Henry,
squirming. "I'm very sorry, but
really — ”
"Your wife!” expostulated the
great analyst. But the other’s face
bore such a look of pained sincer-
ity, such a look of hopelessly frus-
trated goodwill, that he could not
help changing the exclamation to a
sympathetic question. "Your wife?”
"Yes,” said Henry eagerly.
"That’s all the trouble. That’s why
I’m late, and I’m sure that’s why
I’m here anyway. I always have to
tell my wife where I'm going, and
1 couldn’t very well tell her I was
coming here because she doesn’t
ESCAPE MECHANISM
believe there’s anything wrong with
me at all, and I know there is
something wrong with me, very
wrong, and — ”
"All right, all right,’' said Dr.
Jessup, raising one hand and mak-
ing a note with the other. "Your
wife doesn’t understand. But we
understand your kind of trouble
here. I’m sure we’ll soon have you
right.’’
"You mean you have other peo-
ple coming here with the same kind
of thing I’m suffering from?"
"Hundreds, my dear fellow.”
"I’ve never seen anyone with the
same kind of trouble I've got,” said
Henry dubiously.
"But then,” said the doctor ur-
banely, "your complaint is not one
to be seen, is it?”
"But — well no, I suppose you’re
right. You mean, like you can see
a hole and yet you can’t?”
The doctor looked at his patient
quizzically for a moment. "Well,
something like that. Now, Mr.
Saunders, tell me your story
briefly.”
"Well, doctor, the first time it
happened was three weeks ago. My
wife is a little woman, I must im-
press that upon you. In fact — ”
"Mr. Saunders, let me hear your
case,” interrupted Dr. Jessup. "I
am concerned with your mind, not
your wife’s physique.”
"I’m sorry,” said Henry hastily,
"but that’s at the root of it all. I
stand head and shoulders above my
wife. Now, if I was one of those
little men with a straggly mustache,
81
like in those ‘life with father’ pic-
tures, and she was a huge woman,
it would be different, wouldn’t it?
More natural. But when you get a
little woman with a tongue as sharp
as a woodpecker’s beak and — ”
The great Dr. Jessup was becom-
ing increasingly perturbed at the
failure of his renowned professional
manner to contain his patient’s
apologetic lamentations. But on the
other hand, he thought, regarding
the entire matter with the objectiv-
ity he prided himself on, perhaps
he was being a trifle unjust. Per-
haps he was transferring some of
his impatience with Nyren to the
case which the fool had sent him.
"Mr. Saunders, please. Let us
have brevity. The term you seek is
nagging, I believe. Your wife nags
you. Discounting the fact that every
wife nags her husband in greater
or less degree, I recognize that in
your case it may have some bearing
on your trouble. Nagging wife. See,
I have written it down.
"Now I want you to tell me what
has happened to you. But I also
want you to keep to the point, Mr.
Saunders. Afterwards, I shall en-
courage you to talk to me freely,
as a necessary preliminary to your
cure. But first of all the founda-
tions, the map of the country, so to
speak. Go on.”
Henry beamed gratefully. "You
make it sound so straightforward,
doctor.” Then his face rcassumed
its previous tragicomic aspect and
he sighed. "Well, we were going
to buy a suit. Perhaps it would be
82
FANTASTIC UNIVERSB
more correct to say, my wife was
taking me to buy me a suit. That’s
the way it is. I like tweedy clothes,
you see, and my wife thinks I only
like tweedy clothes so- I can make
an impression on women. And
really, I don’t want to do that at
all. I love my wife. Or I did. I still
would — if only she could stop be-
ing suspicious of me.”
He suddenly caught the look in
Dr. Jessup’s eye. "AH right, I'm
coming to the point now. Well, we
got me a suit — if you can call it
that It was dark gray, with bright
black stripes. We were walking
away from the store when I saw a
necktie I liked in another window.
It was an orange-colored tie that I
thought was just the thing to liven
up that terrible suit — if anything
could.
"I suppose I must have craned
my neck a little to look at this neck-
tie. And just then a blonde passed.
At least, my wife said a blonde
passed. I didn’t see any blonde. I
just turned to look at the tie. And
that started it.
"My wife stopped dead in her
tracks and accused me of ogling
other women. I denied I’d even no-
ticed the blonde, but that only made
matters worse. Right in the middle
of the sidewalk, this was. The tilings
she called me in that high-pitched
voice of hers. To think that before
we were married she sang in a choir,
and I used to think what a lovely
soprano voice she had! It’s funny
how things — okay, doctor, I’m
right there now. It's just going to
happen.
"There we were in the middle
of the sidewalk, with everybody
stopping to stare and wink and
nudge one another. It was terrible,
believe me.” He squirmed at the
memory of it. "And then — every-
thing disappeared! The street dis-
appeared, and the people, taking
my wife with them. Even the sun
disappeared.”
"A poetic description, Mr. Saun-
ders. You fainted?”
"No, I didn’t. I was in a differ-
ent place entirely. Not only different
from the place I’d been in the sec-
ond before, but different from any
place I’d ever visited in my life, or
any place I’d seen at the movies or
in magazines.
"The sun was double, for one
thing, and — well, it was like look-
ing at a 3-D picture without glasses.
There was a blue sun and a yellow
sun, set close together and casting
a queer kind of double shadow. I
was standing on the edge of a for-
est of blue plants, and the ground
was soft and reddish-brown like a
carpet of little curled-up ferns.”
“Yes, I see. There is a mention
of it in your history. There is also
the statement that you are a non-
drinker. Is that strictly true, Mr.
Saunders? Answer me frankly,
please. I am here to help you.”
"The most I ever have is a glass
of beer on a hot day. Wait a min-
ute! You’re not trying to convince
me I was drunk, are you?”
"Now, now. Nothing of the kind.
ESCAPE MECHANISM
I just have to make sure of the
facts.”
"Well, that’s all right. I suppose
it does sound as if I was drunk.
But I wasn’t. I was dead sober."
"Then may I compliment you on
a very vivid imagination?" said Dr.
Jessup.
"But it isn’t imagination,” Henry
wailed. "You told me you were used
to cases like mine. Now you try
and tell me it’s all imagination.”
"Come, come, Mr. Saunders.
Why do you take my attribution to
you of a vivid imagination as some-
thing derogatory? Why, the power
of imagination has shaped history.”
"But I was there. 1 know — be-
cause first of all I looked all round
and couldn't believe it myself. The
first tiling I thought of was that it
was some kind of advertising stunt.
I mean, ever since I saw a tank full
of mermaids coming down the street
to advertise somebody’s bathing
suits, I’ve learned not to be sur-
prised at anything. But I was stand-
ing there all alone. I looked down
at myself, and there I was. Just me,
standing on the edge of this blue
forest.
"And then I thought that if I
was there, wherever it was, then I
couldn’t be with my wife, and
goodness knows what she would be
thinking, and that started to get me
scared. Then — I was suddenly back
in the street again.”
"Standing?”
"Eh, Oh, there you go again.
You don’t believe me, do you? You
think I fainted or something, and
83
dreamed it all. Well, I was stand-
ing. I can tell you, it shook my
wife. It’s the first time I'd left her
speechless for years. She didn’t say
another word all the way home. I
only saw her out of the comer of
my eye, looking at me qucerly every
now and then.
"But as soon as we got home she
became something lik£ her old self.
She said she’d have to be more
careful than ever, because I was
obviously even more cunning than
she’d thought. She was convinced
I’d slipped away somehow into the
crowd.”
"Yes, yes,” said Dr. Jessup. It
fell into a familiar pattern. "Now,
have you had another of these at-
tacks since then?"
"Two more," Henry said. "I’ve
had another one since I last saw
Dr. Nyren.”
“And were all three of them pre-
ceded by your wife’s tirades?”
"No. But the next one was. She
was carrying on as usual with some
fantastic accusation when I pretend-
ed I was going out of the door to
escape her voice — and I did. I walk-
ed out of the door and seemed to
walk straight into this other place."
"And the last time?”
"I was sitting at home. My wife
was out shopping. I was feeling
horribly strung about the things
that had been happening to me —
this trouble, I mean, and it just
happened."
"And you see the same landscape
every time?”
"Yes, I did. From different
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
angles, but it’s always the same
place. There’s a stream there I saw
once, and the last couple of times
I've seen a woman. The first time
from a distance, and when she saw
me she ran back into the forest.
But the second time I turned up
almost beside her, and she didn’t
run away. We even held a con-
versation, if you can call it that. I
said 'Good morning,’ and she
laughed a deep chuckling laugh and
said something in a strange lan-
guage. And then I talked to her a
bit more. She seemed quite — er,
friendly."
"Ah!” said Dr. Jessup. "A beau-
tiful woman?”
"Yes, I suppose you could call
her that. She was a bit different
from ordinary women, though. She
had honey-colored skin, and bright
copper-colored hair. And she wore
a sort of tennis frock, though it
was green, not white.”
"And she had a deep voice, you
say?”
"Yes, sir.”
"Tell me, what is the color of
your wife’s hair?”
"Uh — dark brown, brunette,”
said Henry, bewildered.
"The whole thing is crystal-
dear,” said the great doctor ur-
banely.
"It is?” said Henry. "Well, it
certainly takes a weight off my mind
to hear you say that.”
"Yes, yours is a quite straight-
forward case of paranoid dementia.
It is nothing to be alarmed about,
and I am quite confident that -we
shall have you cured in a short
time. What has happened is this:
"Under the stress of marital dis-
harmony you have sought refuge in
another world, a world of your own
creating. You love bright colors, for
instance. So — the world you create
is a brightly-colored one. Similarly,
the woman you create there is the
exact opposite of your wife. Bru-
nette — redhead. High, piercing
voice — low, melodious voice. This
other woman speaks a language you
do not understand, in contrast to
the language of your wife which
you understand only too well. Isn't
that correct?”
"Yes — I mean no, no.”
"Ah, you fear I have brought the
truth too brutally to the surface.
You refuse to recognize these fan-
tasies for what they are. But try to
see the truth, Mr. Saunders. As the
proud motto of this Foundation
proclaims, truth is the beginning of
healing.”
"I won't admit it." Henry
writhed in his seat. "It isn’t true.
What you say about high voice
and low voice, and all that, may be
right — but I don’t imagine it.”
"No, Mr. Saunders? But we can
prove it. For your delusion carries
within itself the image of its un-
reality. In the sky of your imagin-
ing hangs the very symbol of your
dilemma. A double sun. Two suns
of complimentary colors, the image
of the double nature of your exis-
tence. One might say, the image of
your guilt. For you cannot over-
come a sense of guilt that you are
ESCAPE MECHANISM
retreating from reality, and that
guilt obtrudes in visual symbolic
terms, until its menacing presence
compels you to return.”
In his eloquence the great Dr.
Jessup had raised himself from his
chair and leaned over the desk so
that his face was very dose to
Henry’s. Henry bad become increas-
ingly agitated at the analyst’s delin-
eation of his case. He, too, rose to
his feet, but in fear and bewilder-
ment.
"No” he cried.
Dr. Jessup was used to the effects
of exposition on patients. He ad-
vanced round the desk to Henry to
reassure him. But Henry backed
away in panic.
"Don’t come near me,” he cried.
And then it happened.
He disappeared.
Dr. Jessup’s eyes popped in as-
tonishment. He groped his way back
to his chair, flopped down and
poured himself a stiff jigger of
whiskey.
Delusions?
He would have thought so and
ordered himself a complete and
long rest — if he hadn’t been a wit-
ness to Henry’s own tenacious de-
fense of the reality of his transla-
tion. He pulled himself together
quickly with the reminder that his
life had been dedicated to sanity,
and to logic. And logic in this case
pointed in only one direction. That
his patient had, in cold fact, dis-
appeared — bodily. There was only
one thing to do. He must wait for
his return.
85
He flipped the intercom switch.
"Miss Coad, I am under no cir-
cumstances to be disturbed, not even
by yourself.”
Then he settled back in his chair
and waited.
Six . . . seven minutes passed.
Then as suddenly as he had van-
ished, Henry returned in all of his
indubitable solidity.
He jerked at his jacket with an
air of injured dignity restored, and
asked: "Well, now do you believe
me?”
"Amazing,” said Dr. Jessup.
"Truly amazing. I’ve never heard
of a case like yours in all of my
experience. Could you stay here at
the Foundation for a few days for
observation?”
"Oh, no," said Henry quickly.
"I couldn’t do that. I just would-
n’t be able to explain it to my
wife.”
"A pity. You are something
unique, you know. Do you think if
/ explained — ?”
"Impossible,” Henry said firmly.
He was beginning to feel an un-
usual sense of confidence-. He had
succeeded in refuting this doctor’s
allegations that he was crazy. Not
only that, his case — however dis-
turbing — was unique. Still, his con-
fidence was not strong enough to
bear the thought of his wife being
acquainted with the situation.
"Well,” said Dr. Jessup, "you'll
have to give me time to consider
your case. Come back the day after
tomorrow. At — ahem, any time to
suit your convenience.”
86
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
"But isn’t there anything you can
do now?"
Even the great Dr. Jessup was
reduced to a routine procedure.
"Take these,” he said abstractedly,
counting out ten pheno-barb pills
into a box. "One, three times a
day.”
"Well, all right,” said Henry
dubiously. He made for the door,
then turned back.
"Oh, just in case you might let
second thoughts convince you that
we both imagined it.” And he
placed on the desk a curled fern of
a curiously bright reddish-brown
color.
Dr. Jessup picked it up and
turned it over in his hand as his
patient departed. He was no botan-
ist, but he knew this hadn't come
from anywhere on Earth.
He gazed at it for long minutes
in utter silence. Then a gleam came
into his eye. He buzzed the outer
office again.
"Miss Goad, come in here im-
mediately. I have a little job for
you.”
Henry Saunders did not come
back until the afternoon of the ap-
pointed day. But Dr. Jessup had
cancelled all his engagements for
the day, anyway.
"Well?” he said as soon as
Henry entered. "How have you
been ?’*
"I've been all right, thanks,"
said Henry. "I haven't gone over
to the other place once. It must be
those pills you gave me. But my
wife's been worse than ever. I don't
understand what's been happening.
She says that women have been
phoning up and asking for me. My
life these last couple of days has
been an absolute nightmare.”
"A case of clinical experiment.
I'm afraid,” said Dr. Jessup ur-
banely. "It had to be done.”
"You mean you — ?”
"My secretary. Miss Goad, was
merely phoning to wish you well.
It was essential to — ah — hot up
your environment.”
"But I don't see — ”
"My dear fellow,” the analyst
interrupted him, "your worries arc
over. Your problem is solved —
really solved this time. When you
left here I gave you an ordinary
sedative, before I realized what your
trouble was. When I did realize it,
and at the same time realized that
a simple sedative might well be
the cure, I had to ensure that your
nerves received optimum jangling,
so to speak. They obviously did.
But the sedative worked, and pre-
vented your suffering a four-dimen-
sional spasm."
"A what?”
"Yes, it is rather a clumsy name,
I must admit. I must go through
the Greek dictionary and find some-
thing better. But it does express
what in fact has been happening to
you. Under powerful emotional
stress you twitch. Simply that. But
instead of an ordinary twitch, yours
is a four-dimensional one. In other
words, instead of merely twitching
in this world, in three dimensions.
ESCAPE MECHANISM
you somehow twitch yourself right
out of it into another world next
door to this one in a higher dimen-
sion.
*'In some way the translation
temporarily relieves the tension, but
before long you begin to feel agi-
tated again at the consequences —
and you twitch back. It seems that
all your condition needs is a seda-
tive taken regularly. Here’s a pre-
scription for a hundred pills. Carry
on with your three a day. I'll renew
the prescription every time you run
low.”
"Thanks,” said Henry, taking
the prescription. "Thanks a lot. I’m
very grateful.”
"We are here to serve,” said Dr.
Jessup avuncularly. "There is just
one other point, though. Because
your case is absolutely unique, you
will appreciate that I am most anx-
ious to report it to the medical
world. I should therefore be most
obliged if you would give me a
detailed account of your experience,
and of this other world.
"I also hope that at some date
in the near future you will consent
to dispense with the sedative, here
under observation, and give a dem-
onstration of your remarkable
ability before selected colleagues.”
"Sure, doctor. Anything. But I
can’t stop now. I must get back
home. You know how it is.”
Henry was thinking hard as he
handed the prescription over the
drugstore counter. He was thinking
about the other world that now he
87
would never see again, and of the
long years that stretched in front of
him. He had had an adventure, a
strange and disturbing one it was
true, but he had had precious few
adventures in his life. And now
that it was all over he felt regretful
and miserable. Then he suddenly
brightened. He jerked out his pen
and made a rapid calculation.
"Say, can you let me have an-
other fifty thousand of those?” he
said as the clerk returned to the
counter with the pills.
"fifty thousand! Are you crazy?
That’s enough to commit suicide
five hundred times over? Anyway,
they're on prescription only.”
"But I’m — er — going on a long
trip.”
The clerk regarded him quizzical-
ly. "It must be some trip if you
want ‘fifty thousand of these. Any-
way, you can get them anywhere
in the world on doctor’s orders.”
"But — but I’m going to the
jungle,” said Henry despairingly.
"An explorer, eh?” said the clerk,
looking Henry up and down in ob-
vious disbelief. "You don't look
the explorer type to me. But look,
what you want them for is none of
my business. Bromide has the same
effect and you don’t have to have
a prescription. You can have a mil-
lion pot bromides if you like.”
"Fifty thousand will do,” said
Henry, breathing a sigh of relief.
"You’re sure they’re the same."
"They’re not the same. But as I
said, they have the same effect.
They're sedative.”
88
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
"Sedative? Yes, that’s right. How
much will that be?”
On his way home he stopped at
a bar and ordered a whiskey —
something he’d never, done before
in his life. He was about to swal-
low it, when the thought struck him
it might somehow affect what he
had in mind. It was best to be on
the safe side. He took the whiskey
to the wash room, swilled the fiery
liquor around in his mouth, and
then spat it out. He didn't like the
taste of the stuff, but he was sure
that it had alcoholized his breath
satisfactorily.
He greeted his wife warmly the
moment he got in. That warmth
alone was enough to have put her
on her guard. But when she smelt
his breath as he bent to kiss her,
her worse suspicions were con-
firmed.
Such a tirade ensued as Henry
had never heard before.
He waited. He hadn’t taken a
pill. He waited patiently. The tirade
mounted higher and higher, but
nothing happened. He was being
too deliberate about it, he realized,
far too calm. He plucked up every
shred of his resolution, and ad-
vanced upon his wife fearlessly.
"Don’t talk to me like that, wom-
an,” he thundered. His own
temerity frightened him, and it
worked . . .
He was standing on reddish-
brown fern, with a double sun of
blue and yellow shining down on
him. He opened the sizeable pack-
age of bromide pills and took one.
Then he sat down on the ferny
carpet and waited. He looked at his
watch. Ten minutes ticked by.
Twenty.
That was that That was twice
as long as he’d ever stayed before.
So the tablets did work just as well
on this side. He felt a sudden pang
on realizing that he’d never be able
now to give Dr. Jessup the co-
operation he’d asked for. But he
easily put the thought from his
head. Perhaps another case would
turn up to give the doctor the con-
firmation he wanted.
He rose and called out.
An answering cry came from the
blue forest — a low, sweet voice. He
saw a flash of green leaping to-
wards him through the leaves.
Henry heaved a deep sigh of con-
tentment.
grand
rounds
by . . . Alan E. Nourse
It’s hard on a doctor when his
patient has almost every disease
known to man— in short jumps and
spasms. But the Chief was wise!
fT was a gray day at the office.
The Vice-President-in-charge-of-
Promotion met Accounts-Outstand-
ing as he bustled down North Cor-
ridor and fell in step with him with
a weary shrug. "Trouble again?”
he asked.
Accounts-Outstanding nodded.
"The Old Man really blew his lid.
Heads are falling right and left
down there.” He glanced at his
watch with a worried sigh. "And
with business the way it is — ”
"Wonder what the trouble is this
time?”
"Is it ever any different? Delin-
quencies, always delinquencies — ”
"Well, at least Promotion is in
the dear.”
"The way your boys handled that
last campaign? Hah!” Accounts
tapped his heels nervously on the
shiny red floor. They reached the
elevators, and stepped aboard an
Express. "And late for the meeting,
too. Oh, I don’t like it a bit — *
Accounts nodded sharply to the ele-
vator operator. "Executive Suite,"
he said.
The operator scowled, and flick-
ed his tail. The elevator rocketed
downward.
If you've ever had a desire to visit one of our great modern hospitals
and accompany a bead surgeon on his daily rounds here's your chance to
do just that. We’re not quite sure, though, that the hospital won’t collapse
suddenly with a dull, appalling roar and that you won't find yourself in
the debris staring up at Black John himself. But be that as it may, Alan E.
Nourse does guarantee you high-voltage entertainment. And many a chuckle.
89
90
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
In the meeting hall, the silence
was tomblike. They were late in-
deed — three ticks by the clock as
they slid into their places at the
long red table. From his seat at the
end the Old Man favored them
with a glare. Then he swept the
glare around the room, taking pains
to spare no one.
"There's one thing around here
that I don’t like,” the Old Man
grated. The glare swung back to
Accounts-Outstanding. "Do you
know what that is?”
Accounts nodded unhappily. He
wriggled like a trapped mouse. "De-
linquencies,” he said in a tiny voice.
” Delinquencies .” The word hung
pregnant in the room. Then:
"Well?”
Accounts squirmed. "I — I’m cer-
tain we have no delinquent accounts
on the books — ”
The Old Man snarled. "You're
certain, are you? Let’s have a re-
port on Account Number — ” He
cleared his throat, and gave the ex-
act file number. It was 32664910-
773.
There was a wild flurry of un-
derlings about the room. Reams of
paper were riffled; file cards de-
scended like a snowstorm. From
the bottom of a huge pile a clerk
dug out a sheet of legal foolscap
and thrust it into Accounts’ trem-
bling hand.
Accounts read it. He looked up
pathetically. "There's been a mis-
take, sir.”
“The Account is delinquent 1”
Accounts shook his head miser-
ably. "That Account is not Closed,
sir.”
The Old Man leaned forward
slowly. "It was scheduled to Close
last night. Coronary thrombosis. I
arranged the circumstances person-
ally — ”
"It’s that man. They called that
man again.”
At the end of the table the Old
Man seemed to swell visibly. "The
same one who interfered last time?”
"Yes, sir."
There was silence for a long,
long moment. Then the Old Man
said: "I don’t like him. He meddles.
Three times in one month now.
How many times in a year? Thirty?
Forty? Or four hundred?” He
paused, glaring around the table.
"And every time we’ve lost the Ac-
count altogether. I don’t like that
man. I want him stopped.”
Accounts-Outstanding wiped
droplets from his forehead. His
palms were damp. "What can I
do?” he whimpered. "We've tried
everything.”
"Enlist him!” the Old Man
roared.
"He won’t enlist.”
"Then buy him off!”
"He’s already rich. And he hates
women.”
"Destroy him!”
"Sir, you know we can’t tam-
per — ”
The Old Man let out a howl,
and sank back in his chair. Two
small red underlings hovered at
either side, watching him jealously.
His eyes roamed die room, then lit
CRAND
on a small, brown, gopher-faced in-
dividual sitting in a shadowy cor-
ner. "You!”
Gopher Face took another pull
at his cigar, and looked up indiffer-
ently. "Yeah, Boss?”
"You’ve handled some nasty
ones before. What do you have on
this meddler?”
Gopher Face pulled a grubby
note-sheet from his vest pocket.
"John Ross McEwen, M.D.,” he
read, slurring his syllables a little.
"Chief of Medical Services at
St. Christopher’s Hospital. Alias
’Chief.’ Alias 'The Professor.’ Alias
’Black John.’ Alias ’Old Angina.’
Et cetera . . . Knows his medicine,
but nobody loves him. Quite a
prima donna. Crotchety old coot.
Thinks he’s God. When it comes
to diagnosis, he’s damned near
right. Students hate his guts. Interns
hide when they see him coming.
Pathologists been trying to hang
him for forty-seven years, and never
got close. Beat out four top staff
men for the Professorship five years
ago. Four top staff men hate his
guts — ” Gopher Face sighed. "Et
cetera, et cetera.”
The Old Man’s eyes flickered.
"You’re not impressed?”
"Not much.”
"How would you stop him?”
"Discredit him,” Gopher Face
said.
Accounts-Outstanding choked.
"Ridiculous. He knows his medi-
cine. He doesn’t make mistakes — ”
Gopher Face sneered.
The Old Man leaned forward.
rounds 91
"I want it done right. No nonsense.
Can you handle it?”
"It’s a cinch.”
"All right. Get him.”
Gopher Face put down his cigar
and stretched lazily to his feet.
"Anything you say, Boss,” he said.
The intern on Receiving Ward
saw him first.
It had been a long, hard day, and
the intern was in no mood for any
nonsense. He had finally waded
through the evening’s lineup of
spells and miseries, and was head-
ing for some sack time when the
police ambulance drew up.
The intern sighed wearily, and
swore to Aesculapius that if this
was another long-winded lady with
a neurotic gall bladder, he would
personally throw her out on her
ear.
But it wasn’t. The patient was a
little brown-skinned man with a
gopher face, carried into a cubicle
by two burly policemen. He was
doubled up in a ball, clutching his
middle as though his life depended
on it, and groaning in agony.
"Found him down on Market
Street,” the officer volunteered.
"He was walking up from the sub-
way, and all of a sudden it hit him.
Doubled him up like a jack-
knife — ”
The little man lay very still on
the cot, panting. He was thin as a
skeleton; his clothes hung from his
legs like torn cobwebs. Under a
four-day beard, his face was twist-
ed in agony.
92
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
"Please don’t touch me, Doc,”
he moaned. "Oh, I’m dying — ”
"Started suddenly, eh?”
The little man nodded painfully.
"Just like somebody stabbed me. I
think I passed out — ”
"Does it hurt when you move?”
"Oh, my, yes. It’s not so bad if
I can hold still — ”
The intern nodded. Carefully, he
began the examination. The man’s
abdomen was rigid as a board. His
pulse was thready; perspiration
rolled from his forehead. The in-
tern felt a warm sensation at the
back of his neck. A few pointed
questions, a quick examination —
why Wouldn’t they all be like this?
Whistling cheerfully, he picked up
the telephone and buzzed the surgi-
cal resident.
"Got some work for you, buster,”
he said. "Duodenal ulcer — perforat-
ed about half an hour ago. I’ll ad-
mit him and send him up.”
Feeling vastly pleased with him-
self, the intern wrote a brief ad-
mission history, sent the patient up
to surgical ward, and retired to a
rear examining room for an hour
or two of much needed shut-eye.
• He didn’t sleep long.
The chief surgical resident was
shaking him roughly by the shoul-
der. "Get up,” he said.
"Wha-wha-wha — oh! You.” The
intern blinked. “You see that pa-
tient all right?”
The surgical resident leaned
over him menacingly. He sniffed.
"You been drinking?”
The intern jolted upright.
" Hub ?’’
"That patient. Did you admit
him to surgical ward?”
"Of course I did.”
" Surgical ward?”
"Why, my God yes! With a
stomach like that — ”
"Where did you learn your
surgery, Bud?” The resident slap-
ped a chart down on his lap. "You
write up this history?”
The intern stared at him. "Cer-
tainly I did. Perforated ulcer. A
textbook case if I ever saw one.”
He looked bewildered. "What’s
wrong?”
The resident gave him a long,
compassionate look. "Let’s take a
little walk,” he said.
In the ward they found the pa-
tient, propped up against four pil-
lows, gasping and blue. Every
breath was an effort, punctuated
with desperate groans. From clear
across the room the intern could
hear bubbling sounds. Slowly his
ears began to redden.
The surgical resident handed him
a stethoscope. "Listen to his
chest.”
The intern listened. It sounded
like Niagara Falls in there.
"Now put your hand on his
stomach.”
The intern obeyed.
"You see? No rigidity. No
pain.”
The intern swallowed hard.
"Duodenal ulcer, huh? Perforat-
ed, yet! Four years of medical
school, and you need a surgeon to
GRAND ROUNDS
diagnose heart failure for you/'
The resident looked at him in dis-
gust. "Go on back to bed."
A red-eared intern spent the rest
of the night trying to find out who
was on third —
In the morning a red- eared surgi-
cal resident joined him in the search.
It wasn't that he had done any-
thing wrong, exactly. He had per-
sonally supervised the patient's
transfer to the medical ward, and
had called Dr. Porter, the junior
medical ward chief, himself. He
couldn’t help it if Dr. Porter felt
a trifle bilious at being jerked out
of bed at four in the morning. It
would be the resident's neck if the
patient should expire before a staff
man had a look at him.
And anyway, he had no way of
knowing that Dr. Porter would
arrive at full tilt to examine a pa-
tient in cardiac failure and find him-
self. quite suddenly, dealing with
a thin, voluble brown-skinned little
man with quite a different diagno-
sis indeed.
When Dr. Porter finally got the
surgical resident on the phone, he
didn’t waste time with politeness.
He indicated that the resident’s
presence was desired up on medical
ward, in terms that were clear, not
to say pithy. Dr. Porter bore no
love for surgical residents on any
account. Surgeons were a smug,
self-satisfied lot.
Dr. Porter had heard too many
times that unpleasant little fiction
that the surgeons "walk a little
faster, work a little harder, and
93
practice a little better grade of
medicine than the other side of the
house.’’ He snorted, and paced the
chart-room floor. The sort of thing
that Black John McEwen might
say, he thought sourly. Why could-
n’t that old goat have been a sur-
geon? He fitted the mold —
The surgical resident arrived, red-
faced and panting. Dr. Porter
smiled a nasty little smile, and
thrust a chart into the resident’s
hand. "Doctor, do you mean to tell
me you diagnosed this case as con-
gestive heart failure ?”
Something inside the resident
went cold. "I — I — yes, sir."
"With an abdomen like that?"
"Abdomen ?"
"With a white blood count like
that?"
"I— I—"
"How long have you been a
surgeon, Doctor?"
"I— I—"
Dr. Porter snorted again. "Too
busy to examine the patients these
days, ch? When I was in medical
school they taught us a few ele-
ments of physical diagnosis. But
then I guess medical education is
different now."
The resident was staring at the
chart in horror. "But this is ridicu-
lous !”
"You’re telling me,” said Dr.
Porter. "Perhaps you know the ex-
tension number for the Operating
Room, Doctor?”
"Of course I do.”
"Then I suggest you call them
up and tell them to schedule an
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
94
emergency appendectomy, Doctor.
Your patient is about to rupture."
Dr. Porter had just reached the
cafeteria for. a cup of coffee when
the call came for him. All was po-
liteness and deference in the junior
Board surgeon’s voice as he .called
Dr. Porter’s attention to the patient
they had just wheeled into the
Operating Room corridor.
Was Dr. Porter quite sure he
bad sent up the right patient? Oh,
no, nodiing irregular. There just
seemed to be a difference of opin-
ion about the diagnosis. Of course,
it might be a hot appendix, but it
seemed much more like a strangu-
lated hernia. Would Dr. Porter
care to come up and corroborate
the findings?
Dr. Porter set his coffee cup
down with a trembling hand, and
headed at a dead run for the Oper-
ating Room . . .
But the uneasiness at St. Chris-
topher’s Hospital was not relieved
in the Operating Room. A certain
complacent anaesthetist lost a de-
gree of complacency when he found
himself anaesthetizing a patient
who simply didn’t anaesthetize.
. The Board surgeon paced the
Operating Room floor, gowned and
gloved, glaring first at the patient,
then at the anaesthetist, while the
latter felt rows of wet beads form-
ing under his scrub cap. For half
an hour he had fiddled with the
dials. Now the gauge of the cyclo-
propane machine was open to the
hilt, and the anaesthetist covered
the dial nervously with his hand
for fear someone would see it.
Minutes passed. Finally the sur-
geon strode across the room to
pinch the patient's stomach experi-
mentally. The patient cried
"Ouch!” and jumped a foot off
the table.
The surgeon swore. "Doctor,
can’t you do something to anaes-
thetize this man ?’*
In desperation the anaesthetist
shot fifteen cc’s of intravenous pen-
tothal info the patient’s ami. They
waited patiently for the snores to
begin. Then, as the surgeon poised
for the coup d'essai, the little
brown man hiccupped, and com-
plained that if they didn't do some-
thing about that throbbing, he
thought his head would split open.
The surgeon withdrew in a pique,
belaboring the anaesthetist's ances-
try, while the anaesthetist burst into
tears of frustration and retired his
staff position on the spot.
Later, the senior medical ward
chief, an internist by specialty,
clarified the patient’s diagnosis in
a five-minute examination. "Throb-
bing occipital headaches? Light
flashes in the eyes? Good heavens,
Doctor, haven’t you taken this man's
blood pressure yet? 290 over 175,
you say?”
A hasty administration of apreso-
line took care of that, all right, as
the patient abruptly went into
shock, his blood pressure dropping
below measurable levels —
There was talk. Not very much, •
and very, very quiet. But the word
GRAND ROUNDS
got around the hospital. Of all
things painful to a physician, ad-
mitting a diagnostic blooper is the
most agonizing. The little brown
man with the gopher face became
as popular as a drunken house guest.
Or just a little more so.
"Take a look at him ? Not me !
Let somebody up the ladder worry
about him.'' A visiting staff man
shook his head vehemently as the
topic arose in a corridor conference.
"Although I must say the diagnosis
seems perfectly obvious. I read
about a case just like it in the Jour-
nal of Endocrinology last May.
Parkinson at Harvard reported it.
Functional pheochromocytoma of
the left adrenal — ”
"But it might have been a dissect-
ing aneurysm. Of course you know
40 percent of the time they'll give
an atypical history — ”
" — conversion hysteria, plain and
simple. Get a good psychiatrist to
talk to the man."
"But what are they going to do
with him?"
"Doctor, the management of a
case like this presents many prob-
lems. Now, if / were handling the
case — ”
" — not me, thank god. Dussel-
dorf is the ward chief handling him
now. I hear he’s been spiking a
105° fever."
Somebody said: "Maybe they
should present him at Grand
Rounds."
There was silence in the circle.
Little smiles appeared.
"Say! Grand Rounds — "
95
"Now there is a pregnant sug-
gestion !"
"Turn Old Angina loose on
him."
"Or vice versa. Say! Wouldn't
thiti make the old goat squirm?
Where’s Dusseldorf ? He’d be glad
to get off the hook. He can let his
resident present the case. And I
can just see Black John McEwen
putting his foot in it this time.”
Heads drew closer together. Ten
minutes later an emissary hurried
off to find Dr. Dusseldorf . . .
Grand Rounds were the tradi-
tion at St. Christopher's Hospital.
They had been held at 8:00 on
alternate Thursday mornings for
years before John Ross McEwen
had become Chief of Medicine
there. The tradition was maintained.
He had never missed a session; in-
deed, it was whispered about the
hospital corridors that the day he
missed Grand Rounds would be the
day he dropped dead.
But tradition alone couldn’t ac-
count for his faithfulness. John
Ross McEwen was not a modest
man. He had enjoyed the center of
the stage when he first began to
establish himself as "that smart
young diagnostician from Boston"
so many years before and the pass-
ing years had merely whetted his
appetite. On Grand Rounds he held
the center of the stage, alone and
undisputed.
He loved it. He fairly wallowed
in it. Nothing could delight his
crabbed old soul more than a tense.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
96
vibrating Thursday morning ses-
sion as he stood at a bedside dis-
cussing a difficult case, surrounded
by the eyes of his colleagues,
watchful and eager. He knew what
they were waiting for, all right. He
knew they were waiting for the
Chief to put his foot in it as he
turned to a patient with a problem
in diagnosis. He knew, and took
all the more pleasure in burning the
ears off the intern, resident, or staff
man unfortunate enough to have
blundered.
But the eager eyes had waited in
vain. Week after week, year after
year, they had waited and hoped.
And waited, and waited. Because
the Chief didn’t put his foot in it.
That was why he had his reputa-
tion.
The underlings were patient.
He’ll get old, they told themselves.
Those quick, sly eyes will lose their
sharpness. He’ll misread a history,
someday, misinterpret a sign. He
can't go on forever. Someday, they
said —
And John Ross McEwen, Chief
of Medicine at St. Christopher's
Hospital, laughed in their faces.
And went on forever.
He was early this particular
morning. Grand Rounds started at
eight o’clock on the dot — but this
morning they started at five minutes
before the hour. The great doctor
walked briskly into the medical
ward ante-room, rubbing his hands
in anticipation. His white hair was
slicked back against his temples and
his cheeks gleamed from the chill
morning air — he walked the mile to
the hospital each day, to the dis-
tress of his housekeeper, who
feared for his coronaries — and the
old, chipped stethoscope peered
from the pocket of his long white
clinical coat.
If he could surprise the staff by
starting a bit early now and then,
all the better. It put the shoe on
the right foot to start with. AnJ
this way, too, he could indulge in
his favorite sport. He could stop
short in the middle of an examina-
tion, when some ill-advised intern
drifted in, and glare over his silver-
rimmed spectacles until everybody
present knew, beyond doubt, that
An Intern Had Come Late To
Grand Rounds.
But this week no one was late.
They stood, chatting quietly in the
ante- room: four senior staff men,
three junior staff men, ten resi-
dents, five interns, three medical
students, and two nurses, standing
in groups, whispering and laugh-
ing. When he walked into the room,
silence fell like a shroud.
He eyed the group sharply. He
hadn't diagnosed for forty-seven
years without learning to read faces.
There was tension here, an antici-
pation stronger than he had ever
remembered. He rubbed his hands
together, perhaps a trifle nervous-
ly. Something was in the wind.
His greetings were brief, as al-
ways. An instant later he was flying
down the ward, his cortege follow-
ing like a plague of locusts, white
coats flapping. Around the first bed
GRAND ROUNDS
they gathered — senior staff men in
the inner circle, flanked by their
junior assistants and chief resi-
dents. Crowding dose behind, like
layers of an onion, were the junior
residents and interns. And far out
on the periphery the medical stu-
dents scribbled in their notebooks
and tried desperately to hear what
was going on.
It was routine, at first. An aged
lady in uremia; an old man with a
swollen liver; a young man with
puzzling cardiac findings.
"You’ve never heard of beri-beri,
Doctor? You think just because yon
eat well that everybody else does
too? Look at his tongue! Look at
his lips! Doctor, when you hear
heart sounds like that you must not
rest until you have a definitive diag-
nosis! Your patient may die if you
do."
Dr. McEwen rubbed his hands
together and marched on to the
next bed, warming to his task.
Faces flushed, ears turned red. The
great doctor smiled to himself and
hurried on down the ward. And
the tension rose —
He reached the bed at the end of
the ward. A small, gopher-faced,
brown-skinned man looked up at
him and blinked. Dr. McEwen took
his professorial stance a!t the foot of
the bed, closed his eyes, and waited.
Nothing happened. He looked
around sharply, storm clouds gath-
ering. "Well? Who'j presenting
this patient?"
A very green young intern clear-
97
cd his throat. "I — I guess I am,
sir."
"You guess ! Come, now, Doctor
—either you are or you aren’t.
Speak up ! We can’t spend all
morning here. What is your diag-
nosis of this patient?”
"I — we don’t — that is, there
seems to be some difference of opin-
ion, sir."
Someone in the rear circle choked
back a laugh. Dr. McEwen leaned
forward slowly. He took the chart.
"Is there, now! Are you saying that
this man has been in the hospital
for five days, and no diagnosis has
been made?"
"Oh, no, sir. That is, several
diagnoses have been made."
The circle of eyes were watching
him now, waiting. Something deep
in the great doctor’s mind whis-
pered a warning as he stared down
at the patient in the bed. An odd
looking man. Almost the image of
old Mr. Barnard — but that was last
week. Still, the resemblance was
remarkable, in a subtle sort of way.
He snorted, and started flipping
pages on the chart.
He stopped at page four, and
read for a moment. Then he re-
read. Then he shuffled back to page
two, and read some more.
The chill deepened. He had been
practicing clinical medicine for
forty-seven years. In these hospital
beds he had seen, diagnosed and
treated every condition in Cecil's
Textbook of Medicine. He had re-
viewed histories of every descrip-
tion and complexity. He had more
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
98
clinical experience than any other
man in the room.
But he had never seen a history
like this.
Slowly he set the. chart down,
and walked to the patient. His head
was high; long years of experience
had taught him to keep his thoughts
from reflecting in his face, and his
lips by habit curled into a small,
confident smile.
He looked down at the patient.
Browner than old Barnard, thinner
by far. A more — crafty — face than
old Barnard, but the resemblance
clung to his mind. He stared at the
patient.
The little brown man also had
a small, confident smile.
He took the patient's pulse.
Then he said, “How arc you feel-
ing now?”
“Oh, I don’t feel so good, Doc.”
The patient’s voice was weak and
squeaky.
“What seems to be bothering
you?”
"Doc, I don’t know. I been aw-
ful sick, lately. Can’t seem to hold
down my meals.”
"Is that so! All your meals?”
The patient’s eyes were wide and
innocent. “Oh, no, Doc Just break-
‘ fast.”
Something congealed in the great
doctor’s chest. "Anything else trou-
bling you at the moment?”
"Well, sometimes I get dizzy
spells. And then there’s my pain."
He patted his abdomen feebly.
•‘You have pain down there?”
•Well, I couldn’t really call it
paiti, Doc.” The smile was wider
now, showing little yellow teeth.
“It’s a sort of heaviness — ” He
made vague gestures in the air.
Dr. McEwen took a deep
breath. The circle of doctors was
closer now, hanging on every word.
The eyes were no longer so ma-
lignant. They, were waiting, true,
but now they were puzzled and in-
terested as well.
Too damned interested.
Suddenly, frantically, he wanted
to think. He removed the patient’s
night shirt, and brought his
stethoscope down to the scrawny
brown chest. He didn’t listen. He
knew that he had forty long, un-
challengable seconds to think in,
and he used them. Then, slowly,
reluctantly, he went on to complete
the physical examination. It con-
firmed his deepest fear.
It was ridiculous and impossible.
It was fiendish.
The man was pregnant.
For one horrible instant Dr. Mc-
Ewen saw a mental picture of the
faces around him when he said,
"Gentlemen, we are dealing with
a case of pregnancy — " He shud-
dered, and bit his tongue just in
time. That would be all he'd need
to say. They’d take over from there.
“The old goat went balmy,”
they'd say. “Cracked up right in
the middle of Grand Rounds!” And
ten years later they’d still be laugh-
ing.
But it was true. Ridiculous — but
there the patient was, grinning up
at him.
GRAND ROUNDS
Fiendish. More than unnerving.
He handed the chart to the in-
tern, trying to quiet his trembling
hand. Time! He had to have time.
Something was wrong here, some-
thing just out of his grasp, if only
he had time to think —
"Doctor,” he said. "I'd be pleased
if you would review this history in
detail.”
The intern started reading. Dr.
McEwen stared hard at the patient.
There was no doubt of it. He lay
there, thin and brown and very
pregnant. His grin was suddenly a
malignant smirk.
No man ever got pregnant. It
just didn’t happen. Oh, there were
cases — unpleasant things that the
tabloids loved — but they were never
the real thing. But then, no man
ever had a history like this. That,
too, was impossible. But that could
only mean —
He was treading thin ice with
that train of thought, and he knew
it. There was no place in medicine
for wild speculation. His colleagues
in the circle around him knew that.
They could think clearly within the
limits of hard, established fact, and
not one centimeter farther. And
they had not made a diagnosis.
An impossible problem. Then
why not an impossible solution?
Carefully, he let his mind drift
back, groping for something. Old
Mr. Barnard. The resemblance
couldn’t be denied. As though,
somehow, he were being taunted
with the face. But Barnard hadn't
died. He would have died, if the
99
diagnosis hadn’t been made. Funny
guy, old Barnard. Got religion since
that tight squeeze last week.
"Thought the Devil had me sure
that time, Doc,” he’d said and he’d
grinned through his beard. "Figure
I'd better square things away a
bit — ■’*
Ah, yes, old Barnard. Like lots
of old folks, lasting on beyond
their time. Tight squeezes nowadays
often ended up in the patient's fa-
vor. Not like the old days, when
they died young, in the height of
their sinfulness. He pulled his
lower lip thoughtfully. Pickings
must be getting slimmer and slim-
mer down below, with so many
folks having twenty years of old
age to repent in.
He felt something catch in his
mind. Ridiculous? Maybe. Fiend-
ish? Beyond doubt. He gave the
patient a long, long look. Then,
suddenly, he roared with laughter.
"A curious history,” he cried,
cutting off the intern in mid-sen-
tence. "Curious indeed. The most
remarkable patient I've seen in
years.” He wiped tears from his
eyes as he faced the circle of doc-
tors. "Of course, the diagnosis is
perfectly clear.”
Jaws sagged. Smiles faded, and
the chuckle in the back row slith-
ered into a curious bubbling sound.
McEwen leaned forward, smiling
slyly at the intern. "Well, Doc-
tor ?”
The intern struggled for words.
"Perhaps — perhaps a few more
days observation — ”
IOO
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
"Observation? Bah! You've had
five days too long as it is. Well,
how about the rest of you? Dr.
Porter? How would you handle this
patient ?”
Dr. Porter sputtered. "Obvious-
ly, we’re dealing with a most cu-
rious picture here. I’m afraid the
psychosomatic, overtones have ob-
scured the true picture so com-
pletely — ”
Dr. McEwen chuckled. "Psycho-
somatic overtones, eh? I see. Well,
what do the surgeons have to say?”
The surgeons scuffed their feet.
Nobody said a word. Dr. McEwen
turned slowly to the man in bed.
The patient's smile wasn’t as broad
now. His eyes held a hint of un-
easiness.
Dr. McEwen beamed, and said,
"Relax, my friend. Don't worry
about a thing. We know all about
you.” He whipped a prescription
pad from his pocket, scribbled
something on it, and handed it to
the intern. "Take this to Dr. Arn-
ham’s lab downstairs, and get it
filled. And make it fast.”
The intern read the sheet. His
eyes bugged. He hesitated a mo-
ment, then gulped, and took off.
"I'm sure," Dr. McEwen said,
"'that we can dispose of this case
without any difficulty. Heroic ther-
apy, but very effective.”
He looked up as the intern hur-
ried back, clutching a small, ex-
tremely heavy box containing a vial
of fluid. Carefully the great doctor
filled a syringe, turning to the bed.
"Now, if you’ll just hold out your
arm — gel him, boys! Don’t let him
run!”
For a sick man, Gopher Face had
become suddenly agile. He got one
close look at the heavy box, let out
a terrified squeak, and piled through
the circle of doctors in wild panic.
They caught him finally, kicking
and screaming, and piled him back
into bed. Then, as they held him in
a hammer-lock, John Ross Mc-
Ewen himself made the intravenous
injection.
"There,” he murmured. "You’re
going to be a popular fellow when
you get home.”
The result was most curious. The
little man clutched at his arm, his
face drawn with horror. Then, with
a howl of frustrated rage, he be-
gan to dwindle and shrivel like
paper in a flame, his howls growing
fainter and fainter, until with a
barely perceptible shudder, he dis-
appeared in a puff of smoke . . .
The case was never reported in
the literature. Nothing much was
said about it at the hospital, and
not a word leaked to the outside
world. From time to time curiosity
gets the better of a junior staff man,
and he raises the question on Grand
Rounds. But Dr. McEwen merely
looks pained and says, "Really, Doc-
tor, I shouldn't have to explain
such a case to a clinician of your
stature — ” and lets the matter drop.
And a bewildered intern is still
trying to find out what condition
of human pathology can be treated
so effectively with seventy-five milli-
grams of radioactive silver.
you SUU Jtcwe ^imo . . .
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City, Zone, State FU 58
homesick
lake
by . . . Norman Arkawy
and Stanley Henig
Homesickness can be a grievous
malady to a wayfarer in Space
and Time. Especially if you’ve
been cruelly torn up by the roots.
Homesick Lake is not a large
body of water. It is perfectly circu-
lar and barely three hundred yards
across. The water is not very detp
and it evaporates almost completely
during the dry season, which prob-
ably accounts for the fact that the
lake remained undiscovered unlit
only a few years ago.
Its existence was first suspected
when a hunting party selected the
area for a camp site and found
water where the map said there
was only forest. That was in ’68.
It’s easy to remember the date be-
cause in that same year the lost
Venus expedition went out . . .
Colonel Bersik nodded with
satisfaction when he read the
astrogator’s report. ETA was 1150,
less than forty minutes away. He
flipped the switch on the intercom
and contacted the radio room of
the Magellan. Instantly, the squawk
boxes all over the ship blared forth
the commander’s order.
"Stand by for landing ! All hands
stand by for landing!”
The crew strapped themselves in
at their stations and double checked
Norman Arkawy is one of the most gifted of the newer group of science
juntas y writers and unquestionably one of the most industrious, for his
work appears frequently in all of the imaginative fiction magazines. Now
its able collaboration with the resourceful Stanley Henig be has brought
us one of those eerily enchanted glimpses of an alien world quite as
thrilling as an epic journey by river boat through the Amazonian wilds.
102
HOMESICK LAKE
the instalment pads on the arms
of their couches. In the troop com-
partments, the men donned their
gear and took their weapons from
the rack before securing themselves
in their bunks.
There was a tense uneasiness
throughout the ship. In the crowd-
ed compartments where the men
of the Fourth Atomic Infantry
Platoon waited, brows grew wet
with perspiration and hands toyed
nervously with the safety locks on
the AD rifles.
The strain had become acute.
Up forward, in s-2, the astroga-
tor put aside his charts and lay
back against the cushions. He
glanced across the small cubicle at
the ship’s exec. Major Denn lay
immobile in his acceleration couch,
staring at the bulkhead above his
head. This was the major's first trip
beyond Lunar.
The astrogator smiled sympathet-
ically. ''Nervous?” he asked.
Major Denn turned his head to-
ward the older man. Their eyes
met, and he smiled in sickly fash-
ion. "A little.”
“I know just how you feel,"
sympathized the astrogator. "I’ve
been on nine flights and it still gets
me — every time just before decel-
eration.”
“I know,” Denn said. "There’s
nothing you can do about it either.
But that’s not what worries me.
It’s those damn clouds! It was dif-
ferent on Mars. At least they could
see what they were getting into
there. But with those infernal
103
clouds, Heaven only knows what’s
waiting for us!”
“Don’t worry," the astrogator
said. "Bersik knows what he's — ”
They were pushed back abruptly
into the pressure cushions as the
ship roared into an orbital approach
and began its deceleration.
Minutes later, the Magellan
dropped down through the heavy
clouds. Falling at controlled plane-
tary speed, the silvery ball slipped
through the dense atmosphere as
effortlessly as a terrestrial airliner
coming in for a landing from forty
thousand feet.
When the last of the clouds drift-
ed away behind them, Colonel Ber-
sik stared anxiously out of the com-
mand view panel at the sloping
expanse of green below. The
radoguide had selected for a land-
ing site a wide, flat plain in the
midst of a steaming jungle. The
huge spaceship glided gently down
toward its destination.
The colonel watched the pano-
rama below gradually narrow as the
scene rushed up to him. There was
a puzzled expression on his face.
The plain below them was almost
perfectly circular, its green, grass-
like vegetation ringed by a vast,
multi-colored jungle of trees. It was
unnaturally geometrical.
A knocking on his door drew his
attention away from the viewplate.
"Come in!” he called out and
turned to see Major Denn step over
the sill of the doorway.
Bersik liked Denn. He was
young — the youngest exec the colo-
FANTASTIC CN1VERSE
tc>4
ncl had ever had. And the best. He
was the prototype of the dean-cut,
intelligent young men the Corps
pointed to with pride in its re-
cruiting propaganda . . . They
never mentioned the other kinds!
Denn saluted smartly. "Sir,” he
reported, "the ship is ready for
touch-down. All personnel are belt-
ed in. Landing batteries A and B
and boosters are ready to fire. Ac-
tivation time — ” he glanced at his
wrist chrono — "one minute, seven-
teen seconds.”
Several minutes later the Magel-
lan rested on the scorched ground.
The ship shuddered slightly as the
power cut off, then was still.
S-3’s analysis was encouraging,
surprisingly so. The atmosphere was
similar to Earth's — a bit more oxy-
gen, slightly more CO 2 , less nitro-
gen — and quite breathable. There
Was plenty of water vapor, heavily
laden with strange perfumes, but
no unknown microorganisms or
spores.
The men left their space gear in
the ship.
The area around the ship was
explored carefully. Beyond the bare
circle which the landing blast had
burnt clean, the vegetation was
heavy. Dark green grass lay on the
land like a tightly-woven carpet.
No bare ground, not a single rock
marred the continuous expanse of
green that stretched to the edge of
the forest. The grass was wet and
spongy underfoot.
The air was warm and dripping
with moisture. It was thickly scent-
ed with a strange floral fragrance.
The scented air was like a balm to
the weary men of the Magellan. A
single breath relaxed tense nerves
and supplanted fidgety watchfulness
with a calm, dreamy euphoria.
It felt wonderful.
Bersik looked up at the sky, a
glaring gray dome of thick clouds
that hid the sun and diffused its
light over the entire heaven. His
gaze traveled down to the horizon
where the gray blended into a vivid
splash of color that was the jungle.
Red, green, orange, yellow— -the
multi-colored trees rose high into
the air in a tangle of intertwining
branches and tortuous vines.
He gazed drowsily at the beauti-
ful colors. He breathed deeply the
perfumed air. He closed his eyes
and smiled happily, enjoying the
sweet peacefulness of this marvel-
ous place.
Forcing his mind back to
thoughts of his assignment, Bersik
pulled himself out of his lethargy
and looked around him at the men
in his command. They were all
standing as he had stood, entranced
by the calm beauty before them.
Hate to spoil their dreams, he
thought dryly, but . . .
He turned to the exec. "Let's
move the men out, Major."
Denn was startled by the sudden-
ness of Bersik’s voice breaking the
profound silence and disturbing
pleasant thoughts. Involuntarily, his
muscles tensed and he caught his
breath.
*Tm sorry, sir,” he said, quickly
HOMESICK LAKE
regaining his composure. "I guess
I was daydreaming."
The colonel smiled sympatheti-
cally. "Wake the men up,” he said,
"and move them out. Let's see what
that forest is like.”
Slowly, the men headed for the
jungle. The straggling columns of
troops stretched out across the
soggy field. They moved cautiously,
on the alert for unknown dangers,
but the intervening distance was
covered without incident. Soon, the
men in the point of the lead column
stood in the shadow of the massive
trees.
Huge trunks towered heavenward
in a dazzling array of bright hues.
Enormous leathery leaves hung
heavily from majestic branches that
loomed overhead. Thick vines
twisted through the jungle, bridg-
ing the gaps between the trees and
making it an impenetrable wall of
vegetation.
Bersik went over to a tree and
examined its bark, feeling the tex-
ture with his fingertips, tapping it
with the butt of his gun.
The sweet odor hung heavily in
the air. Its -effect was almost over-
powering. Bersik struggled to keep
his mind from drifting off into
pleasant but irrelevant contempla-
tions. He ordered that a sample of
die bark be removed for study in
the lab.
A detail of men was put to work
on the tree. Major Denn watched
them as they hacked at the tough
bark, and a perplexed frown
105
creased his face. He turned to the
colonel.
"Sir,” he said, "do you notice
the light that seems to be coming
from inside the jungle? With such
dense growth, I don’t see how any
light can filter in, much less out. It
looks as if there's something in
there — something white and lumi-
nescent.”
Bersik peered into the heavy
growth. "It’s hard to tell with all
these bright colors.” He moved his
head from side to side to get differ-
ent lines of vision. "I think you’re
right,” he said uneasily.
"The perfume seems stronger
here, too,” Denn observed. "Did
you notice?”
"It might be a good idea to look
into it,” Bersik said. "Move a blas-
ter into position and we’ll cut a
path through these trees.”
A mobile blaster was leveled at
the forest wall. Colonel Bersik sig-
naled the gunners. There was a
blinding flash, a zipping sound, a
smell of ozone in the air, and a
jagged hole appeared in the for-
merly solid barrier.
Bersik and Denn led the men
through the opening in the jungle
wall. They stepped into an immense
field of whiteness, a field of beauti-
ful flowers that extended as far as
the eye could see. High overhead,
the trees of the jungle spread their
limbs and came together to form
a protective roof that sheltered the
masses of delicate flowers below.
Bersik nudged Denn and pointed
to the leafy canopy above them.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
106
"That explains why we didn't spot
this field from the air.”
The major nodded absently and
continued to gaze at the snow-white
expanse that reached .to the horizon.
It was breathtaking! It was like a
dream, like a trip to the land of Oz !
The odor of perfume was over-
whelming. Bersik fought to control
his thoughts. Lazy, sleepy thoughts.
He struggled against them.
Thoughts of slow flowing rivers.
He tried to push them away.
Thoughts of sailboats on a white-
flecked sea. Thoughts of home.
The men of the expedition were
standing at the edge of die field,
awed by the sight of the flowers,
intoxicated by their dizzying fra-
grance.
Pick one, said the thought. Pick
a flower.
A few of the men bent down
and gently plucked some lilies.
"Water lilies!" Bersik mur-
mured. "But they smell so . . .”
Pick a flower, the thought re-
peated more strongly. Pick a flower.
Pick a flower!
Bersik obeyed.
Moving as one person, the men
stooped and, when they rose again,
each of them wis holding a blos-
som and breathing deeply its exotic
scent.
The counterattack was suc-
ceeding! The huge fortress barrier
had been unable to resist the alien
assault. There had been a penetra-
tion of the defense ring. But the
counterattack was succeeding!
There were a few errors, of
course, but that was inevitable in
such a large operation. There were
a few tragic mistakes. They were
regrettable, but they could not be
avoided, and, fortunately, they did
not hamper the defense . . .
No/ No! screamed the lovely
bloom as the small flower at its side
was picked. Don’t let them take my
baby!
Help! Let me go! whined the
yellowish flower as one of the men
plucked it from the ground. Can’t
you see that I'm not well?
Not me! cried the fat, bloated
lily. I didn’t volunteer!
But, despite the few disturbances,
the thought came through clearly to
each man. Pick a flower . . .
Colonel Bersik sniffed at his flow-
er. It was delicious. It was worth
the trip from Earth just to . . .
Home. Go home. Home.
Almost immediately, Bersik gave
the order to return to the ship, but
the men had already begun to move
out even before he spoke. They re-
treated through the opening in the
jungle wall and started the trek
across the rubbery grass, back to
the Magellan. Each man carried a
water lily, and occasionally lifted
the flower to his nose and breathed
deeply the sweet fragrance that did
not fade.
The men filed aboard the Magel-
lan and gingerly went about pre-
paring the ship for departure. They
strapped themselves into their
couches. They waited.
Howe. Go home.
HOMESICK LAKE
107
"Blast off!" Bersik commanded.
The great ship’s engines roared
to life, and the Magellan was
streaking upward through the
clouds above Venus. It spun into
an orbit around the planet and ac-
celerated until it exceeded escape
velocity, then shot off into space on
its course for Earth.
Relax. Smell the pretty flowers.
Relax.
Bersik called the astrogator on
the intercom. "What is our
course?" he asked, "and estimated
time of arrival?"
Silence.
"Report on course and ETA!”
he repeated into the phone.
Smell the pretty flowers. Relax.
Relax.
Bersik smiled. Once more, he
spoke into the intercom. "It would
be nice to walk down to the bay
this afternoon and watch the gulls
soar over the white-capped
water . .
The voyage was a pleasant one.
Never before had the crew of a
spaceship in interplanetary flight
been so happy and so contented.
Every man was perfectly relaxed.
At peace.
Smell the pretty flowers . . .
Each man on board was dream-
ily sniffing at a water lily when the
great ship smashed into the Earth
and burst apart in a blinding flash
of light. No one saw the explosion,
and few people felt the mild earth-
quake that shook the nearby coun-
tryside.
Nothing remained of the Ma- '
gellan but dust and a huge crater
in the middle of a forest preserve.
In the rainy season, the lake fills
with water and beautiful lilies grow
there. The perfume of these flowers,
they say, is like nothing on this
Earth. And, they say, if you visit the
hike when the flowers are in bloom,
you will feel a strong nostalgic
yearning to be home. That’s why
they call it Homesick Lake.
Leading the entertainment parade in the current issue — on sale at your
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and features Leslie Chatteris’ fantastic Simon Templar at his very best.
crazy,
mixed-up
planet
by . . . Charles E. Fritch
A very superior person was . Talus
and not in the least monkeylike.
I£ the pink Earthians thought
otherwise — it was their funeral.
Tulus was eighty-seven million
light years from his home planet,
Dorca, when the main reactor valve
on his subspace motor began acting
up. The ship lurched alarmingly
and gave several shudders, and be-
fore he could cross the full width of
the pilot's chamber the engines
coughed and died. The rear reactor
stem on the vessel’s stem twitched
briefly like a leg of a dying animal
and then subsided.
Tulus was a patient man. Only
the great god Greema knew how
patient he was, and many a Dorcan
went so far as to claim he was too
patient for his own peace of mind.
But this was too much, even for so
philosophically resolute a navigator.
Across millions of light years he
had traveled for the sole purpose of
securing for his mate Berba a spool
of sky-green plastithread of precise-
ly the proper shade, and the reactor
valve had given him trouble almost
from the start. It had sputtered and
trembled and threatened to stop
completely.
Once he had been forced to stop
right in the middle of a great glow-
ing galaxy to adjust the vibrating
Do you remember Charles E. Vritch’s inimitably satiric little yarn — part
fantasy and part prophetic science fiction — about the brilliant psychiatrist
and the woman from Mars he couldn’t seem to unscramble? Well, Air. Fritch
has done it again, but this time his protagonist is a hairy individual from
the interstellar dark with a slight paranoid psychosis and an entire planet
to unscramble. And thereby hangs a tale — and a tail! — you’ll not forget.
CRAZY, MIXED-UP PLANET
screw so that the ship wouldn’t
shake apart. And now the rebellious
instrument had succeeded in silenc-
ing the engines.
He meditated upon the tragedy,
drumming his fingers against the
dashpanel in growing irritation, his
tail waving great swishes of annoy-
ance. The delay would almost cer-
tainly make him late for work at the
nuclear fission factory, and he could
just picture wheezled old Grimus
consulting his sunwatch, and chuck-
ling in glee as the penalties mount-
ed, and the seconds ticked silently
away.
Tulus felt the anger surge
through him like some great flow-
ing river, full of rapids and cata-
racts and wind-lashed spray plung-
ing against the granitelike barrier of
his patience. And then the dam
broke.
Cursing in seven different lan-
guages, Tulus rose. Trembling with
indignation, he picked up the only
portable object within reach and
tossed it furiously against the bulk-
head. It was only a spool of mem-
ory-recording micro-tape, and it
clanged harmlessly against the reso-
nant metal barrier, doing no dam-
age. His fingers clenching and un-
clenching, Tulus looked around for
something breakable, something that
would shatter into millions and
millions of spinning fragments.
There was nothing of the sort any-
where in the pilot chamber.
He cursed again even more volu-
bly. He cursed his wife who had
nagged him into taking the trip,
109
and lie cursed the makers of the
ship — a Probos Subspacer, last
year’s model — and he even cursed
the mechanic who had checked the
vessel and assured him diat every-
thing was in splendid shape. Most
of all, he raged bitterly against the
age in which he lived — an age that
made everything so durable that a
justifiably angered man couldn’t re-
lease his pent-up emotions by smash-
ing, breaking, and exulting in the
sweet, if suicidal music, of irre-
placeable things shattering.
How he raged !
And when he could think of
nothing else that merited vitupera-
tion, he drew out his disintegrator
and blasted a nearby plastimetal
table into swirling, waltzing motes
of golden dust. After that, he felt
better.
He sat down, suddenly relieved,
and found that he could think about
die injustice without becoming
seethingly furious. Still, it was an-
noying. He curled his tail comfort-
ably about him and put through an
urgent telescreen call to Dorca.
"Hello, Interstellar Service Unit
77 H. This is Tulus 4713,” he said
the instant an image appeared. "I
brought my ’819 Probos Subspacer
to your place the other day for a
checkup. Now the main reactor
' alve’s not working. The job was
guaranteed, you know?”
"Our guarantee,” the image said
indifferently and almost insultingly,
"applies only during a time-period
of two days or a space-period of
forty million light years, whichever
no
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
happens to foe shorter. Have you ex-
ceeded either period?”
"Of course I have,” Tulus said,
beginning to get exasperated. "You
can go nearly forty million light
years just by backing the ship out of
the hangar.”
"A slight exaggeration,” the
image pointed out. "Nevertheless,
our guarantee no long applies.
However, if you’d like space-serv-
ice — ”
"At your rates,” Tulus said, "I
should say not!” Irritably he cut off.
He could remember every infuri-
ating aspect of a previous' applica-
tion for space-service when he had
been only a few million light years
out. They had made him sit around
on his tail for three hours awaiting
the arrival of a mechanic who had
made a few minor adjustments that
had taken only seven minutes of
actual working time. The bill had
set him back eighteen depeels. For a
service call out here, the charge
would be staggering. The thought
of what it would be made him an-
grier still, and he wished again he
had something breakable in his
hands.
He sat down, curling his tail
around him again, and impatiently
scratched the hair below his right
ear. There was a manual of emer-
gency repairs somewhere on the
ship, he recalled. Perhaps with luck
he could fix the reactor valve him-
self. There could be no harm in
trying and meanwhile, he’d better
let his wife Berba know precisely
where he was in space.
He put in a telescreen call, and
when her image appeared, he ex-
plained with careful and eloquent
persuasiveness exactly what had hap-
pened.
"A fine thing,” Berba said in-
dignantly, her upper lip curling
back over her amber-colored teeth
and gums, "and you don’t like it
when I have a little trouble.”
"When you have a little trouble,”
Tulus reminded her, trying to keep
his thinning patience intact, "it’s
always because of a speeding viola-
tion or a bent reactor stem or some-
thing else that’s nine-tenths your
fault. I’m blameless entirely.”
"Hmpf,” Berba said, self-right-
eous ly. "Can I help it if those park-
ing hangars are set so close to-
gether? And as for speeding — ”
"All right, skip it,” Tulus said
wearily. "Look, while I’m checking
over the manual. I’d be grateful if
you’d determine for me exactly
where in space I am. I may have to
land somewhere out here for re-
pairs.” He gave her his coordi-
nates.
"Are you sure you’re alone ”
Berba asked, suspiciously. The hairs
around her nose twitched and she
twisted her short neck to peer into
the shadows behind him.
"Of course, I’m not alone,” Tulus
snapped. "I’ve got four exquisitely
beautiful women here with me.
Now, get busy on those coordinates.
I don’t want to be drifting around
out here all day!”
Irritably, he switched the screen
off. Consign to perdition all suspi-
CRAZY, MIXED-UP PLANET III
cious women, he thought. He found
himself wishing he did have four
beautiful women with him, all of
them with smooth brown hair, deli-
cate flaring nostrils, and shapely
tails. He sighed in bitter frustration.
He didn’t, so common sense dic-
tated that he hunt up the manual
and try to make some emergency re-
pairs.
A wretched shame! he thought.
He ambled across the cabin, drag-
ging his hands on the floor in the
listless fashion which usually indi-
cated that a Dorcan was thinking
heavily. He found the manual after
a brief search under a pile of mis-
cellaneous equipment in a closet ad-
joining the sleeping quarters. The
excitement of foraging through the
closet made him forget temporarily
that he w'as stranded in space. There
was a dart ball racket which brought
back many fond memories. He re-
called that his first romantic en-
counter with Berba had occurred
during a game under off -gravity.
They had collided in mid-air, and
their tails had become accidently
interwoven.
It had been embarrassing, of
course. But it had led to better
things, and had eventually resulted
in their marriage. She had possessed
a really outstanding figure in those
days, with not a bristly or matted
hair to spoil her seductively alluring
contours. And she was so graceful
that not once during the courtship
had she accidentally stepped on her
hands or tripped over her tail. Sigh-
ing, he replaced the racket and re-
minded himself that the pleasant
reminiscences could wait until he
had repaired the reactor.
Carefully following the directions
outlined in chapter five of the emer-
gency repair manual, Tulus dis-
assembled the main reactor valve
and found that the cause of his
trouble lay in the inside coating. It
had worn calamitously thin where
the terminal wire crossed the relay.
He knew without looking that he
didn’t have a can of the coating
handy. He was all set to start curs-
ing again when Berba called.
"What are you doing out in that
section,” she wanted to know. "The
General Space-Store is off in the
other direction. By the way, did you
get the plastithread?”
"Yes, I did,” Tulus said irritably.
"I was taking a shortcut. Never
mind that now. Am I near any
habitable worlds ?”
"There’s a small system of nine
planets nearby," Berba said, "and
two of them are inhabited — the sec-
ond and the third. Did you get it in
sky-green ?”
"Yes, I got it in sky-green!’*
Tulus almost shouted, mentally curs-
ing the dart ball game that had en-
tangled him so permanently. "What
are the coordinates?”
Berba told him. "Fine,” he said.
"Now look up as much data as you
can on the planets, and see if there’s
anything that resembles the coating
needed on the inside of a main re-
actor valve.”
"Why don’t you have a mechanic
look it over,” she said doubtfully.
1 12
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
"It would take only a few min-
utes — ’’
"And pay those pirates a for-
tune?" Tulus bridled. "I will not.
I’ll be late for work first and even
let old Grimus dock me all the
credits he wants. I know what I’m
doing."
"I hope so," Berba said, uncon-
vinced. "Don't lose that plasti-
thread. You can’t get sky-green eas-
fy"
"I wouldn’t dream of losing it,"
Tulus snapped, shutting her off
with an impatient click.
He had an almost uncontrollable
urge to take the plastithread and
toss it out into space as far as he
could, which in the frictionless void
would be a considerable distance.
But he knew that if he did she
would only get him to make the trip
again and she might even go along
next time.
Stoically, he adjusted the dials
for the coordinates she had given
him, and automatically flipped the
switch for the subspace drive. When
the motors remained silent, he re-
membered the worn valve coating.
He cursed again and started the
auxiliary rocket engines.
' In the two years that had elapsed
since his purchase of the spaceship
he hadn’t used those engines once,
and the previous owner hadn’t
either. There had been only four
hundred thousand parsecs registered
on the mileage dial when Tulus had
bought the vehicle second-hand
from his wife’s brother who oper-
ated a used-spaceship concession on
one of the inner planets.
Tulus had suspected the readings
had been set back. But he could
hardly accuse his wife’s brother of
being a crook, even though the ras-
cal probably was . . . Anyway, the
rocket motor spluttered, flaring
sparks, and Tulus looked at the
Speedometer dial with open disgust.
'Tour hundred and fifty light
years an hour,” he said in a tone of
disbelief. "I’m barely moving!"
Glumly, he settled back on his
tail and turned on the outer screens
to view the approaching system.
Fortunately for what peace of mind
Tulus had left, the system was only
about a hundred light years remote.
He watched it grow swiftly larger.
It had a medium-sized yellow sun,
and eleven — no, nine planets. He
leaned forward and saw that the
fifth planetary orbit was taken up by
a mass of asteroids.
The telescreen buzzer aroused
him from his preoccupation with
the system, and he punched a but-
ton that brought Berba’s face into
view.
"Did you get the data?" he asked
her.
"Maybe you’d better call the serv-
ice unit," she suggested hesitantly.
"They at least could — ’’
"They could charge me a month's
pay for a few seconds’ work,” he
said. "I’m not going to give them
hard-earned credits when I can do
the job myself. Did you get the in-
formation ?”
"What little there was," Berba
CRAZY. MIXED-UP PLANET II
said. "Actually, the solar system is
so minor that hardly anything is
known about the planets. The sec-
ond is inhabited by green amphib-
ians and the planet is mostly ocean-
ic. The third is similar to ours, and
the creatures are almost human.”
"What do you mean by 'almost'
human?” he asked her.
"Well, they walk upright like us.
Only their forearms are much short-
er and they’re pink-colored and hair-
less, and — ”
"Pink colored? Hairless?” Tulus
shuddered, visualizing the combina-
tion. And his wife in her incredible,
naive stupidity had called them "al-
most human” !
Berba nodded innocently. "They
are really very primitive,” she went
on. "They haven’t even developed
space travel yet.”
"Yes, yes,” Tulus said impatient-
ly. "But what about the valve coat-
ing? Have they got anything on the
planet I can use.”
"I don’t know,” his wife said
helplessly. "There’s no information
on that. Tulus, why don’t you call
the service Unit? Even if it does cost
a little more than you can afford — ”
"A little more?” Tulus exploded.
"I’m not paying those robbers a
single credit. Never mind, I’ll find
the coating on one of the planets.”
"Which one, Tulus?”
"I’ll try the third one,” he said.
"It sounds more promising, some-
how. Don’t ask me why.”
"But, Tulus — ”
"Make a couple of ergon sand-
wiches for me,” Tulus said, inter-
rupting her deliberately. I’ll eat
them when I get home. See you
later."
He shut die screen off, discon-
nected the apparatus so that she
couldn’t bodier him again, and set-
Ued back to watch the solar system
rising swiftly toward him, paying
particular attention to die third
planet.
It was green — almost sky-green,
he thought with some bitterness —
and it had a single chalky-white
satellite whirling around it It was
just barely conceivable fhat if the
natives had any intelligence at all
their best minds might be able to
help him discover just the one right
coating for the reactor valve. They
hadn’t space travel, Berba had said.
Possibly he could even bribe diem,
if necessary, with a few "secrets” in
return for their help.
At any rate, he was not going to
call up the Interstellar Service Unit
and pay their racketeering prices.
That much was certain.
He got up, yawned, stretched
lazily, and then scratched himself
where a flea had gotten a foothold
deep in his fur. He gave his tail a
few experimental swishes and was
satisfied that it had retained all of
its flexibility. While his stomach
may have gone slightly to pot, he
was still as agile as ever, and very
deliberately he hopped up and down
several times to corroborate this.
Unaccountably, his thoughts return-
ed to the four non-existent women
he’d dwelt upon earlier with illicit,
but very agreeable ardor. Ah, well —
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
114
The detectors clanged loud warn-
ings, rudely waking Tulus from his
reverie. He hopped into the control
chair and watched the planet dart
up at him. Frantically, he twisted
dials, and threw switches, using
both hands, both feet, and even put-
ting his tail to work. Gradually the
’819 Probos decelerated, pulling his
stomach into his throat where it
made unpleasant growling noises.
The jet tubes shuddered in their
moorings, and vomited spasmodic
bursts of flame toward the planet
below. Tulus had barely time to se-
lect a landing spot before he was
settling rightly into it. His stomach
retreated to a more normal position,
but he felt no better for the change.
He was convinced that his internal
orcans were in new and possible
dangerous positions and he half-
wished he had called the service unit
for repairs.
But he’d gone too far now to re-
treat with dignity. Besides, success
was almost within his grasp. He’d
show those mechanics, and his wife
too, who refused to believe he could
do it.
Tulus got up from the control
chair and experienced sudden nau-
sea. His tail shot out expertly, wrap-
ped around the chair, and steadied
him. In a few seconds, his head
cleared and the room stopped its
precarious pin-wheeling.
"Whew,” he breathed. The next
time his wife wanted sky-green
plastithread, or purple, for that mat-
ter, he'd —
He left the thought uncompleted.
his eyes riveted on the nearest port-
hole. Framed in it was a big stretch
of sunlit grass with some strange
square structures obscurely visible
in the distance. The vista was not at
all like a housing development area
on his home planet. There were
very few trees in evidence, and die
houses were not built in the trees,
but right on the ground. That cir-
cumstance failed to disturb him,
however. He was familiar with the
customs of other planets, especially
primitive ones, and he knew that
they were often strange and un-
fathomable.
He checked the air and the grav-
ity and found both reasonably to his
liking, though the temperature was
a little low for normal comfort But
at least a space suit would not be
needed, which was a blessing. If
there was anything he hated it was
to have a flea take to roaming while
he was imprisoned in a spacesuit,
unable to scratch or relieve the tor-
ment in any way no matter how
hard he tried.
There were few tortures more
complete.
He opened the airlock, tossed
over the ladder, and descended
hand over hand, dropping nimbly
from the lowermost rung to the
ground. Immediately he saw a small
creature sitting on its haunches a
short distance away regarding him
with an unmistakable mixture of
curiosity and amazement. Mentally,
Tulus went over Berba’s description
of the planet’s predominant ani-
mals. Pink and hairless, she’d said.
CRAZY, MIXED-UP PLANET
This animal was grey and furry, and
it had long ears propped up straight
as though it were listening intently.
It’s nose quivered delicately.
"Are you intelligent?’’ Tulus
asked it in the Basic Language.
"Can you speak?"
"Of course not," the animal an-
swered distinctly. "Rabbits can’t
talk.’’
"Oh," Tulus said, considering
this startling bit of wisdom. "Where
can I find the dominant species on
this planet — the pink and hairless
ones ?”
"Over there, in that farmhouse,”
the rabbit told him, pointing his
quivering nose in the proper direc-
tion. "I know, because once in a
while one of them comes out with a
weapon and tries to shoot me.”
Tulus was shocked. "That seems
cruel,” he said. But then, on second
thought, he remembered that other
worlds had other customs, and what
right had he to pass judgment on
them ?. -"Still,” he said, "I hope you
have weapons to fight back with.”
"None at all,” the rabbit said
calmly. "Only my eyes and ears to
see his approach, and my coloring to
hide me among the rocks, and my
speed to enable me to get away.”
"That's not fair at. all,” Tulus
said, though a more rational part of
his mind whispered that it was none
of his business. "Look,” he said on
impulse, "I have weapons on board
my spaceship, one so powerful it
could destroy this whole planet in
one blow. I could give you one of
the smaller ones — ’*
1 15
"No, thanks," the rabbit said.
"We rabbits are a happy lot in gen-
eral. Having weapons wouldn’t
make us any happier, and it might
— make us sadder. Thanks, any-
way.”
Despite himself, Tulus admired
the creature’s primitive philosophy.
In his calmer moments, he had often
thought a similar rudimental accept-
ance of reality might benefit his own
society.
"Well, good luck,” he said.
"I should have,” the rabbit saicl.
"I have four rabbit’s feet,” and he
hopped away to prove it.
Tulus watched the animal leave.
After a moment of thoughtful re-
flection he decided the rabbit’s state-
ment was undoubtedly true, but
wondered what significance it could
possibly have. Shrugging, he turned
his attention to his own more im-
mediate problem.
The pink and hairless ones were
in that clump of houses over there,
were they? Well, it wouldn’t take
him long to find out if they could
help him get back to Dorca. The
thought of meeting the strange crea-
tures filled Tulus with a sense of
excitement such as he had never ex-
perienced before, and he scampered
eagerly across the sunlit plain to-
ward the dwellings.
He had almost reached them when
he remembered what the rabbit had
said about a weapon and shooting,
and he paused briefly, considering
that disturbing revelation. Then he
remembered the disintegrator hang-
ing at his side and went on.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
116
Any weapons the pink ones might
possess would almost certainly be
primitive and he was sure that his
superior intellect could easily over-
come them without recourse to force
or violence.
There was a small fenfced-in area
surrounding several animals that
pushed and squirmed happily in a
large puddle of mud. They were
small creatures, but larger than the
rabbit, and indisputably pink and
hairless..
"At last,” Tulus breathed.
Tlie animals had paid not the
slightest attention to his approach,
but suddenly one of them exclaim-
ed, "Oink!”
"What did you say?” Tulus asked
in the Basic Language.
"I wasn’t talking to you,” the
creature responded. "I was merely
sighing. I don’t know whether I
like eating best, or just splashing
around like this.”
Tulus grimaced, forcing himself
to remember once again that other
worlds had different and often quite
unsanitary customs. Abstractedly he
searched for an elusive flea.
"Are you the dominant society on
this planet?” he asked.
"I am a pig,” the creature said
. proudly. He appeared to ruminate
for a moment, and then went on,
"I don't really know if we pigs are
the dominant species or not. I guess
so. After all, we have tall pink crea-
tures who wait on us and bring us
our food.” He considered this care-
fully, as if he had just thought of it
for the first time. "They must be
our servants. You know, we’re real-
ly even luckier than I imagined. I'm
glad you brought it up.”
"Where are the tall pink crea-
tures?” Tulus wanted to know,
"Tlie ones who walk upright?”
"Over there, in the white house,"
the pig said, lifting a mud-covered
snout in the proper direction. "The
woman’s at home now.”
"Thanks,” Tulus said. All this
was extremely interesting. But he
remembered suddenly that he wasn’t
here on a vacation, and that he had
to get die main reactor valve coated
and travel back to Dorca in time to
go to work.
So he scampered in earnest over
to die front porch of the dwelling,
nearly tripping over his dragging
arms in his haste, and lie hurled a
thought at the door. He was sur-
prised when it failed to open.
"These people are more primitive
than I thought,” he told himself.
He searched about for some non-
telepathic opening device and, find-
ing none, hammered on the door
with his hand. If hammering failed,
he decided, at least there would be
a noise diat might persuade one of
the pink and hairless ones to open
it for him.
The door opened, and Tulus
shrank back appalled at his first
sight of the planet’s predominant
animal. It was pink -orange and
though its body was nearly hairless,
there was a profusion of wild dark
hair billowing out from its head.
The creature’s complexion seemed
to change from pink-orange to a
CRAZY, MIXED-UP PLANET 117
greenish hue as it continued to gaze
on Tulus, and it wavered slightly
and held one hairless arm out to
steady itself.
"Good heavens,** it said, "a mon-
key!"
Tulus didn’t know what a mon-
key was, but he had a strange feel-
ing that the creature’s remark was
not intended as a compliment
"Hello, 1 ' he said in the Basic
Language. "I’m from the planet
Dorca, and my spaceship — ’’
The woman — the pig had called
it that — gave voice to a sudden
shriek that turned Tulus’ blood
cold. "George,” she cried out, mak-
ing the shrieking sound again —
how was he to know it was laugh-
ter? — and bending almost double at
the waist.
"George, you had me fooled com-
pletely. I thought you were a real
monkey.”
Tulus switched his tail in annoy-
ance. "Woman,” he said, in a very
stern tone, "my name is not George.
It's Tulus, and I’ve come to ask
you — ”
"Okay, I can take a gag,” the
woman said, "although on second
thought, it is a pretty hokey cos-
tume. How do you work the tail?”
"The what?”
"The tail? Just how do you work
it? It’s pretty clever, I must admit,
but as soon as I heard your voice I
recognized you. You can’t fool your
own wife.”
"That’s true,” Tulus admitted
ghxmly, "but I’m afraid — ”
"Come on in,” the woman in-
vited exuberantly, pulling him for-
ward and closing the door firmly be-
hind him. "Where did you get that
costume — and why? You may as
well break down and tell me all
about it.**
"Well — ’* he began.
"But first take off the headpiece,”
she insisted. "^our voice is so
muffled I can hardly hear you.” And
she proceeded to help him.
"Be careful! Oh, don’t!” Tulus
cried out But the woman merely
shrieked again, and seemed mani-
acally intent on twisting his head
loose.
He had not expected such inti-
mate contact, and the closeness of
the creature did nothing to benefit
his stomach, even though, combined
with the woman’s natural smells, he
detected a strange artificial scent
which smelled rather pleasantly
flowery.
Fortunately he managed to loosen
her grip and scamper onto a nearby
chandelier which swung like a
pendulum beneath his weight. From
this relatively secure position he
looked warily down at die creature,
and wondered whether it might not
be advisable to disintegrate her, and
stop this nonsense.
"Good heavens,” she said in a
trembling voice. "You — you’re not
George!” She wavered slightly and
reached out toward the wall to
steady herself.
"Exactly, "Tulus said, hi$ temper
subsiding. "I’m Tulus.”
"Too loose for what?” the
woman inquired weakly.
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
Il8
"My name,” Tulus said with de-
liberate slowness, "is Tulus. I'm
from the planet Dorca, and my
spaceship needs repairing. Now, if
you could direct me to the nearest
scientist — ”
"Oh, I get it,” the woman said,
her greenness fading a little.
"You’re a character in a publicity
stunt for some new science-fiction
movie.” She nodded knowingly.
"You certainly had me fooled for a
minute. Boy, what a crazy mixed-up
world this is.”
Tulus was inclined to agree with
her. He closed his eyes and slowly
counted to one million, in triple
decimal units. When he was through
he felt no calmer. He swung back
and forth on the chandelier, his tail
darting to and fro like a great whip.
He thought about his ship, crip-
pled and useless a short distance
away. He thought about the Inter-
stellar Service Unit with its exor-
bitant rates. He thought about old
Grimus at the nuclear fission fac-
tory and how pleased the old devil
would be. He thought about his
wife Berba and the nagging she'd
do. Within him, Tulus felt his
blood come to a boil and knew that
something would have to rip.
* Nimbly, he leaped from the chan-
delier and drew his disintegrator.
He opened the door. "Now, watch
carefully,” he directed.
The woman needed no urging.
The instant he drew the weapon her
eyes expanded to several times their
natural size and remained riveted on
him.
Tulus took careful aim and pull-
ed the trigger. The large red build-
ing behind the pig enclosure disap-
peared in a sudden blinding flash of
light. Tulus bolstered the gun.
"There,” he said triumphantly,
"Now if you're really interested — ”
But he might as well have saved
his breath, for the woman was
stretched out on the floor, uncon-
scious, and serenely at peace with
the world.
Tulus spluttered at this sudden
inconvenience, hopping up and
down and calling the woman un-
pleasant names in his native Dor-
can. When he had finished, she still
remained supine and unmoving, so
he determined to let her stay that
way. He went out on the porch and
slammed the door angrily behind
him.
Now, why couldn’t sensible crea-
tures like the rabbit and the pig be
the dominant species of such an
otherwise normal-appearing planet,
he wondered. He shook his head
sadly at the injustices of evolution
and looked around for some other
creature to try his luck with.
A paved road went past the farm-
house, and while Tulus stood star-
ing intently into the hazy blue dis-
tances, a land vehicle zoomed past,
and was quickly lost to view. Star-
tled, Tulus leaped chattering back
behind the protection of a post that
helped support the porch roof and
clung to it tenaciously.
As he peered around the barrier
another vehicle shot past, and after
a moment three more in rapid sue-
CRAZY, MIXED-UP PLANET
cession. Tulus could see several per-
sons inside. It made sense, of
course. Having no trees and vines
for transportation, the creatures had
built vehicles which traveled along
the ground. His admiration grew,
as did a plan for flagging down one
of the strange land craft.
"I’ll just step out in front of the
next one,” he told the porch, "and
when the pilot sees me he’ll stop.
Then I’ll ask him to take me to a
scientist.”
The whispered and highly con-
fidential remark reminded him that
he wanted the scientist to help him
with the valve coating, and that in
turn reminded him that he wanted
the valve coating so he could blast off
into subspace. It also reminded him
that no matter how fast he went he
would probably be late anyway, and
old Grimus and Berba would have a
regular picnic in dissecting him,
and —
He moaned and decided he was
wasting time feeling sorry for him-
self when he should be doing some-
thing about it. He scampered down
the porch steps, and across the in-
terval of lawn, and stood in the
middle of the road. By shading his
eyes with one hand, he could see a
black dot on the road moving swift-
ly towards him. Eagerly, Tulus hop-
ped up and down, chattering and
waving his arms. The dot grew
larger.
He leaped away just in time.
There was a deafening roar and a
wheel nearly caught the end of his
tail. Bewildered, he stared after the
1 19
speeding vehicle and saw it swerve
crazily, the occupants gawking back
to look at him.
Tulus drew his gun and fired at
the car. He missed, and disintegrat-
ed instead the bottom of a pole
strung with wires. By the time he
had calmed down sufficiently to take
careful aim, the car was out of
sight and he had lost interest in de-
stroying it.
Replacing his weapon, he ambled
on down the road. He thought
briefly about returning to the space-
ship and forgetting the incompre-
hensible pink creatures who seemed
determined to misunderstand his
logically motivated behavior. But
the prospect of leaving with his mis-
sion unaccomplished pained him.
He'd try once more, this time stay-
ing beside die road. If they wanted
to stop, well and good. If not, at
least it wouldn’t be any hair off his
tail.
Several more cars passed him dur-
ing the next half hour, dieir pink
occupants all craning their necks to
stare at him. Finally, one of the cars
stopped, a grey one with black let-
ters proclaiming "State Police," and
two pink creatures in dark blue uni-
forms got out. “At last,” Tulus
thought, with some relief, "these
must be the scientists come to greet
me.”
"Take it easy, Fred," one of the
pink creatures said to the other. "He
might be dangerous.”
Both held weapons, Tulus no-
ticed with sudden alarm. He held
out his arms in a friendly gesture.
120
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
"I come on a peaceful mission,” he
told them in the Basic Language.
"My name—”
"It talks!” the one called Fred
croaked, turning slightly green.
"It can't be,” the other said.
"Monkeys don’t talk.”
"Maybe it’s a circus freak,” Fred
ventured. "With a split tongue or
something. There are talking dogs.”
"Yeah,” the other breathed hope-
fully. "1 sure trust you’re right. I
wish we had brought a net along. I
don’t like to wrestle monkeys.”
"I am not a monkey,” Tulus in-
sisted firmly. ”My name is Tulus,
and — ”
"Get him, Fred!”
Fred leapt forward and threw a
half-Nelson around Tulus’ furry
waist. "Give me a hand! Quick!”
he shouted.
"Now, hold on,” Tulus protested.
"That’s just what we intend do-
ing,” the other pink creature said,
leaping forward too. "Look out!
He’s got a gun.”
"Not any more he hasn’t,” Fred
said triumphantly, holding the
weapon aloft.
Tulus struggled, but the two pink
specimens were huskier than the one
at the farmhouse. They held him in
an iron grip. "This is an outrage,”
he stormed. "What are yotf going to
do with me?”
Fred scratched his head inexpert-
ly. 'That’s right, what are we going
to do with him? There’s no zoo
around here.”
The other shrugged. "We’ll just
have to put him in jail, I guess.”
"In jail? On what charge?” Tulus
demanded.
"That’s right,” Fred admitted.
"You can’t put him in jail unless
he’s done something wrong.”
"Listen, brother,” his companion
said, jabbing an authoritative finger
at Tulus, '■'when a monkey goes
walking down a state highway, we
don’t need a charge to slap him in
the clink. Monkeys don’t have no.
civil rights, see?”
"I see,” Tulus said, debating the
advisability of biting the finger wag-
ging impolitely beneath his nose.
"But I don’t like it. Besides, I don't
know what a monkey is. I’m certain
I’m not one. My name is Tulus,
and — ”
"Well, you look like a monkey,”
die officer pointed out, "so we act
accordingly.”
They proceeded to act accordingly
by herding him into the back scat
of the vehicle, where die one called
Fred immediately snapped hand-
cuffs on his wrists. Fred sat nervous-
ly on the edge of the seat, even
when the car roared into motion.
He tried to avoid looking at his
prisoner.
Tulus felt properly indignant, for
he had anticipated a far different
reception from primitives. Not a
banquet or a parade perhaps, but a
little respect would not have been
out of order. He felt die old fa-
miliar urge pounding at him to toss
all gyros to space and start tearing
and smashing and breaking. There
were probably a lot of breakable
things on this crazy planet.
CRAZY. MIXED-UP PLANET 121
But he managed to console him-
self with die reflection that now at
least he would be meeting high-
placed officials who would listen to
liis story, and among diem he might
find a sympathetic ear.
"I don’t get mad very often,” he
told himself silently, "but when I
do there’s a good reason.” But die
time for anger, he realized, was not
now. For the greater good of repair-
ing his reactor valve, he must suffer
a temporary inconvenience, and bide
his time.
He didn’t care, though, for the
planet’s primitive means of loco-
motion, which made him feel only
slightly less ill dian had the rocket
deceleration. He tried to watch the
pink creature in die driver’s scat to
see what crude manipulations were
necessary to keep die vehicle in mo-
tion. But during much of the fif-
teen minute journey he kept his
eyes shut, opening them at the sud-
den screeching of brakes and honk-
ings of horns only to satisfy a natu-
ral curiosity as to what they had
missed colliding with.
They passed into a busy section
that was encircled like a fortress
widi die granitelike facades of tall
buildings and crowded with double
lines of swifdy moving traffic. At
their destination — a large official-
looking grey building — Tulus was
rudely escorted from the vehicle and
guided up the Steps. Several passers-
by did double-takes at seeing him,
and he reflected that, while on
Dorca he was just an average citi-
zen, here he would naturally be re-
garded as an advanced evolutionary
product
It was not at all surprising, there-
fore, that these creatures should re-
act in such a manner. He thought
briefly about Berba and what she
would think of his sudden impor-
tance — briefly because he resisted
die thought as soon as it came. First
problems first, he told himself — and
was promptly presented with an-
other immediate problem as he was
ushered into a cell.
"I’d like to see the leader of this
planet,” he said.
"Sure,” the officer replied. "Just
cool off in here for awhile, and try
to relax. We’ll send him in when he
arrives.”
Though he was not overly warm
and had no particular wish to cool
off, Tulus accepted the statement
with some degree of relief. He
shrugged noncommittally and made
a quick stabbing motion for a flea
which was crawling towards the
sanctuary of his right armpit.
"I hope I don’t have to go
through any diplomatic channels,”
he said, upon a sudden thought. He
had originally assumed that no such
problem would arise, and that he
would be able to land, find the re-
actor valve coating, and take off. He
had not considered that there might
be complex laws concerning visitors
from space which these primitives
would feel obligated to carry out.
He sat down on a hard cot a few
feet from the cell door, curled his
tail comfortably about himself, and
worried about his latest troubling
122
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
thought. Perhaps, he wondered, he
should have called the Interstellar
Service Unit, after all. Exorbitant
rates or not, the time element was
important, and was rapidly becom-
ing critical.
Tulus frowned, and his tail
switched in a sudden frenzy. Old
Grimus, the Clockwatcher, would
be at his post bright and early, wait-
ing to see whom lie could catch
coming in late. Until now, Tulus
had never been late. But now he
was probably going to break all
tardiness records. lie felt trapped
and completely helpless.
In sudden resignation, he took
hold of the bars of his cell and
called out, ‘Tve changed my mind.
Let me out, please." But no one
came. In a gruffer tone he repeated
the request, but still no one came.
Angrily, he paced the cell, his tail
swishing. Then he grabbed the bars
and shook them until they rattled.
Finally, the uniformed creature
known as Fred appeared, nervously
ushering in another creature who
had transparent discs suspended by
a wire frame before his eyes. They
stopped before Tulus, and the new-
comer stared through the transpar-
ent discs with interest.
*'Er — this is my brother Arnold,”
Fred said, and added quickly, "Ar-
nold’s a biologist. I knew he’d be
interested in you, so I decided to
call him.”
Tulus listened patiently to Fred’s
explanation. On Dorca, introduc-
tions were generally accompanied by
an intertwining of tails, but Tulus
had noticed early upon his arrival
that the pink creatures had the mis-
fortune to lack tli at useful anatomi-
cal feature. Besides, under bhe cir-
cumstances he felt no obligation to
be polite.
"See here,” he said, with all of
the forccfulness the Basic Language
could muster, "I’ve changed my
mind. I want to go back to my space-
ship.”
"Imagine that,” Arnold said,
peering interestedly through his
transparent discs. "A talking mon-
key.”
"I thought he might be the miss-
ing link,” Fred volunteered. To
Tulus he said: "Arnold’s not really
a biologist. He’s a plumber. But he’s
always wanted to be a biologist . . .
Go ahead, Arnold, say something
biological.”
Arnold blushed modestly.
"This is all very interesting,”
Tulus lied, "but I'd like to get back
to my spaceship.”
''Imagine that,” Arnold said, still
properly amazed. "A talking mon-
key.”
"Can you tell if he’s a missing
link,” Fred said hopefully. "I could
use a little extra cash right now, and
I thought — ”
"Not without looking at him a
little closer,” Arnold said. "From
here he looks like just an ordinary
monkey that can talk. Could you
open the cell?”
Fred hesitated. "Well,” he said,
"well, I — I don’t know.” He wet
his lips and looked around guiltily.
CRAZY, MIXED-UP PLANET 121
“We don’t want him to escape, you
know.”
It was the word "escape" that ar-
rested Tulus’ attention, for he real-
ized with a sudden startling clarity
that tii at was precisely what he
would have to do if he ever wanted
to leave this crazy mixed-up planet.
With renewed interest he watched
Fred’s lips quivering with hesita-
tion.
“Well, okay," Fred said, finally,
“but only for a minute."
Tulus waited, poised, hardly dar-
ing to breathe, his legs coiled under
him. When at last the door swung
carefully open, he gave a great leap
and bounded over the two suddenly
startled pink creatures, knocking
them with shattering violence to
the floor. He paid no attention to
their frantic exclamations of sur-
prise, fear and anger, but sped on
down the hall, trying to remember
where the exit was.
By the sheerest stroke of good
luck he found it quickly, jerked it
open, and scampered down the
stone steps into the street. One of
the land vehicles honked wildly,
and just missed him. His blood
boiled. He flung an obscene Dorcan
phrase after the vehicle, and reach-
ed for his disintegrator — then re-
membered that the uniformed crea-
tures had taken it from him. Well,
he’d have to do without it.
He jerked open the door of a
passing vehicle, and leaped in. The
driver stared at him in terror, Jet out
a shriek and tried to crawl through
the rear window.
"Stay in here,” Tulus command-
ed in his most terrifying tones, "and
you won't get hurt. Drive down
this street.”
The driver gulped, turned a sick-
ly shade of green and obeyed. The
vehicle shot forward like a jet of
liquid argon.
“Turn left here," Tulus said sud-
denly, remembering. "Go faster."
The driver went faster. They
sped down a widely curving road,
tires humming against the pave-
ment. Behind them a siren sounded.
"Faster," Tulus urged, "or I’ll
eat you alive."
The thought was nauseating to
Tulus, but the threat accomplished
its purpose. The driver turned a
deeper shade of green, shivered,
and pushed his foot down hard on
the accelerator pedal.
The countryside streamed past.
Tulus smiled. If only Berba could
see him now. Another wish leapt
unbidden into his mind. If only he
could have gotten the valve coating !
Or even have called the Interstellar
Service Unit, and smothered his
pride.
The spaceship came into sight.
"Stop," Tulus ordered.
The driver was so anxious to
please that Tulus was thrown vio-
lently forward against the front
glass. But in his eagerness to get
back to his own ship he paid no at-
tention to die grievously swelling
bump on his forehead or the sudden
turning over of his stomach. He
leaped out, with the shrill whine of
the sirens loud in his ears, and raced
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
124
across the field. Behind him, the ve-
hicle made strange clashing noises
and vanished down the road in a
cloud of dust.
"There he is, George,” a familiar
voice cried out "That’s the one that
blew up the barn and attacked me.
Shoot him!”
Tulus glanced back over his
shoulder. The pink creature he had
encountered earlier in the farm-
house was standing on the porch
pointing at him, and beside her was
another pink creature with an
abundance of hair on his chest The
other creature held a long metal
tube in his hands.
Tulus didn’t stop to ask ques-
tions, He simply increased speed
until he heard an explosive roar and
felt a thousand angry bees sting
him on his backside. He cried out
then in furious resentment, and ran
faster, his tail twitching painfully.
As he reached the ladder and start-
ed to ascend, another roar came.
But he stubbornly closed his eyes
and kept climbing, as fast as he
could pull himself up. The hull of
the ship quickly became splattered
with tiny chunks of metal. Still re-
fusing to pause, he thanked the
great god Greema for sparing his
tail a further, and more grievous on-
slaught, and leaped the last few feet
into the airlock.
The clafig of the closing portal
rang musically in his ears, but even
then he didn’t pause to sigh in re-
lief. He reeled across the pilot
chamber, and forgetting his wounds,
flung himself into the control chair.
Instantly, he cried out again and
leaped up cursing, jabbing at the
switches and buttons from a stand-
ing position. Beneath him, the rocket
tubes shuddered, and he felt his
stomach grow hollow and begin to
contract.
Not until the planet was a small
round ball receding into the spatial
void did Tulus stop, and stare back
at it. He felt a justified surge of re-
sentment, and he winced again as a
spasm twitched his injured tail. He
thought about the Interstellar Serv-
ice Unit and the prices he’d now be
compelled to pay. He. thought about
Berba and how she’d nag him for
this, with an intolerable "I told you
so” look on her face.
He thought about old Grimus at
the nuclear fission factory and how
the old buzzard would take such de-
light in the misadventure that he
would never let him forget it. He
thought about the disintegrator he’d
left behind, the deluxe model which
had cost him 4.99 credits but was
guaranteed to shoot under water.
He thought about his backside pep-
pered with chunks of metal, his
neatly combed tail ventilated by the
small round pellets shot at him.
Tulus got mad. In the space be-
low him the planet spun unsuspect-
ing through its orbit. It was sky-
green, a color that had started every-
thing, that had set the stage for his
undoing. Tulus didn’t like its color.
With a smile of satisfaction curl-
ing his hairy upper lip, Tulus readi-
ed out to press a button. He knew
what would happen if he did — a
CRAZY, MIXED-UP PLANET
beam of light would dart out from
the *819 Probos toward the sky-
grccn planet. And the instant the
light touched the planet the spin-
ning globe would change color.
First it would turn red. Then it
would shrivel and turn black. And
it would remain a black, smoking
cinder spinning on into space, spin-
ning on for all eternity.
He took one more look at the
planet — his finger on the button —
and suddenly lie felt a sorrowful.
125
overwhelming pity for the rabbit and
the pig. Tulus decided not to press
the button, and so deciding, fell
better almost immediately. Even
when he put a call through to the
Interstellar Service Unit, his anger
was minor. He did not even mind
the spasm of pain that went through
him when his tail gave an automatic
swipe.
"Imagine them trying to make a
monkey out of me," he whispered
and smiled comfortably to himself.
HANS stefan santesson, the only Honorary Monster we’ve ever met {yes,
Honorary Member, ti.ma), will discuss current Science Fiction and Fantasy
titles beginning with the next issue. A pioneer in the Book Club use oj
SF while Editor of the Unicorn Mystery Book Club during 1945-'}2, Sanies •
son spoke at the 9th and 10th World Science Fiction Conventions in
New Orleans and Chicago. Active with the Mystery Writers of America
( and former Chairman of thesr Student Awards Committee), Santesson, a
Science Fiction reader since the late twenties, has lectured on SF and
Fantasy writing, led a Writer's Workshop and done considerable editorial
work in the field, and was one of the organizers of the professional
Fantasy Writer's Guild. He also — but enough for now. Watch for him!
homecoming
by .. . . /. Harvey Haggard
Leek’s favorite songs were “Keep
the Home Fires Burning” and “The
Old Familiar Faces.” But Loda City
threw the joyful melody off-key!
The spaceship landed, and
ceased to throb and pulse, its stern
lights blinking off. After a moment,
a man emerged and walked to the
pier edge of the landing island.
Martin Leek was small, slender, and
shyly wistful of aspect. Yet his
retiring look concealed a grim
fortitude that refused to compro-
mise with the more outrageous
aspects of life.
"Welcome, traveler. Lots of pro-
fit this trip?" called Eugene, ex-
tending his saurian head aloft. He
lolled on a mudbank, but he had
plainly been watching the passen-
gers debark. "Welcome home.”
"Hello," said Martin. He squint-
ed against the wind — chill, malo-
dorous it was. He pulled his thin
cloak away from him as he clutched
his flat traveling bag. He answered
the other’s greeting, one thought
at a time. "Not too much. Thanks.
Glad to be back.”
Behind him, aerocabs came and
went like insects, taking passengers
across the swampglades to Loda
City. A monotube shot its glassy,
bulletlike cab shoreward with a
swoosh. Those inside, he observed
J. Harvey Haggard’s recent stories have been largely concerned with the
mystery surrounding the origin and nature of human beings — a mystery
which modern anthropology has failed to resolve. Are there intangibles
in human evolution which point to some factor at work in the universe
of stars which proceeds from the general to the particular in an often
quite horrifying way? You’ll see what we mean when you read this titty yarn.
126
HOMECOMING 127
with a shiver, looked warm and
cozy. Buttoning the top button of
his wind-lifted coat, Martin turn-
ed his back on the tube and twisted
his thin lips into a smile directed
at Eugene.
"Would you like a ride to
town?” asked Eugene. Martin
grinned and nodded.
"Grab a hump,” said Eugene.
He reared from the mud-bank,
obligingly. Martin straddled the
upper ridge of armor plates, hold-
ing his bag close. Several new-
arrivals from other worlds squinted
against the savage wind, gaping
with disbelief. "All comfy?”
Eugene asked. "All set to take the
jolts?”
Seeing his passenger was, Eugene
took off. His departure became
spectacular but not ungainly. Re-
laxing his height, he submerged
halfway and began paddling swiftly
across the thick fluid. His flappers
made sucking noises, and left on
the smooth waters of the swainp-
glade a wake of widening ripples.
Vegetable growths made islets here
and there, and now some moved of
their own accord, drawing away
from the swimming behemoth. The
keen wind, fruity with unpleasant
aromas, blew spray patterns of scud.
The sky above had been poisoned
a slight orchid.
Martin’s cigarette made a hissing
sound as he flung it into the roiling
muck. He braced his legs, and
squeezed his knobby knees together.
He could hardly keep from shiver-
ing with cold, or present his teeth
from chattering but he could at
least protect the traveling kit.
Martin hadn’t fathomed all of
the strangeness of Yulil when he’d
brought his new wife, Rugie, to
the planet twenty years before.
They’d been sustained by dreams,
gossamer break-easy dreams, bub-
bles that held a teeming universe.
He had promised to lay a cosmos
at her feet, a planet at a time —
and Yulil had been first cm his list.
Yulil. Geneless world. Amidst
pleasures and palaces ... be it ever
so humble . . . there's no place
like . . .
A world of polymorphs, say.
Poly, for many. Morphs, for shape.
Many shapes. No two alike. An
interesting planet, when first you
heard of it. No one had clearly
understood at first. Then the sci-
entists had detected that an inner
radiation bombarded the living
tissues of all life on Yulil.
Everything on Yulil was differ-
ent. Each living creature from the
other, all different in turn. Tentacu-
lar .. . insectivorian . . . these were
but words to denote biological kin-
ship or dissimilarity, but here there
could be no such thing as similarity.
No such thing even as a separate
species. Just substance knowing but
one natural law, to evolve into
something unlike anything that had
ever existed before. Unlike pro-
duced the unthinkable. However,
for all of that, there was a lot of
gneissilite on Yulil. You could
make rocket fuel out of that.
"How’s everything on the other
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
128
planets?” asked Eugene, forever
inquisitive. He’d never been off of
Yulil.
"Humdrum.”
"The War in Vegas?”
"Invaders from the Seven Sisters
have the edge, but it’s touch and
"Wup! Hold it!” Movement
surged, and an amorphous mass
arose in front of Eugene. It had
none of his saurian sleekness. It
was as primal as something swim-
ming in stagnant water under a
microscope. Everything hinted at a
weak mental structure, largely in-
tuitive. It threatened attack.
"Scrambola!” yelled Eugene. He
slashed out viciously, exposing a
terrific mouthful of teeth.
The primordial thing squirmed
rapidly away.
"Of life,” quipped Eugene,
"that’s a most terrible parable.”
Ihen he brayed at his own humor.
Martin joined in, chuckling as
much from relief as anything else.
His thoughts slipped back to those
of a moment before.
Home and Rugie! She wasn’t a
princess by earthly standards, of
course. But then, Martin Leek al-
ways enjoyed the traditional thrill
of homecoming. He experienced a
quickening of his pulses, a height-
ening of his perceptive faculties
as tlie shore neared.
Eugene swam against a heavy
out-going tide, then found solid
footing and waded ashore. Martin
Leek slid off. He balanced for a
moment on a walkway, then turned
to Eugene.
Compromise ... he thought.
Adaption to circumstance. Who
could have foreseen the problem
that would confront all Earth dwell-
ers who came to Yulil? Even from
the moment of conception, from
the foetus onward, the genes and
chromosomes that determine hered-
ity characteristics were destroyed or
distorted by a radiation from the
world’s core.
"Thanks for the lift,” said Mar-
tin Leek gratefully.
"Any time,” said Eugene.
"You’ll be up at the house later,
won’t you?”
"Sure. Tell mother I want to
watch the Arcturian Express make
a landing. Then I’ll be up in plenty
time for dinner.”
Martin Leek turned toward the
city. His bent shoulders drew more
erect, and he walked quickly as he
stepped forward, humming a tune.
He was home.
Eugene taxied around toward the
landing island, churning the water
to a foaming wake. He turned once,
still in hailing distance.
"So long, dad,” he called.
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